By Dave Workman
In the wake of Monday’s historic Supreme Court hearing on whether the federal prohibition on gun ownership by marijuana users should be allowed to continue, NBC News reported that the justices “appeared sympathetic” to the challenge.
The Los Angeles Times reported the high court seemed “skeptical” about the Trump administration’s defense of the law, noting how President Donald Trump last year signed an executive order reclassifying marijuana as “a lesser controlled substance.”
PBS quoted arguments made by government attorneys in court documents which asserted, “Habitual illegal drug users with firearms present unique dangers to society — especially because they pose a grave risk of armed, hostile encounters with police officers while impaired.”
While the Supreme Court will not likely hand down a ruling on this prickly subject until June, the mere fact that justices heard the arguments at all is a significant step, especially while other Second Amendment issues—i.e., bans on so-called “assault weapons” and “large-capacity magazines” —keep getting kicked down the road by a court which seems far too timid to take such a case.
During the oral arguments, Justice Neil Gorsuch suggested pot users aren’t viewed as a major threat to public safety. He went even further, noting, “John Adams took a tankard of hard cider with his breakfast every day. James Madison reportedly drank a pint of whiskey every day. Thomas Jefferson said he wasn’t much of user of alcohol. He only had three or four glasses of wine a night. Are they all habitual drunkards who would be properly disarmed for life…?” He was responding to an argument by Deputy Solicitor General Sarah Harris that historically there were laws which disarmed “habitual drunkards.”
As noted by NPR, “Marijuana use is legal, to one degree or another, in 40 states, but at the same time it’s illegal under federal law and is classified a schedule one drug, among the most dangerous.”
The statute barring habitual drug users from gun ownership was the one which tripped up Hunter Biden more than two years ago. He was convicted—and subsequently pardoned by his dad, Joe Biden, during his final days as president despite promising the country earlier he wouldn’t do it—for buying and owning a gun after falsely filling out a federal Form 4473. The junior Biden had a history of drug abuse.
What’s good for a president’s son should be good for any citizen, was the consensus following the pardon.
The case involves Texas resident Ali Danial Hemani, who was allegedly a frequent marijuana user and had a gun in his home when it was searched by federal officers about four years ago. NBC’s report suggested any ruling favoring Hemani “could be limited in scope, based on concerns that prosecutors could not show that Hemani’s use of marijuana made him a danger to society.”
Not surprisingly, the case has garnered national attention from civil rights groups, marijuana advocates, Second Amendment activists and legal scholars.
And they will all have to wait nearly four months for a decision.
