All nine justices agreed Thursday that the federal government violated a Texas man's Second Amendment rights by prosecuting him for keeping a handgun in his home while he used marijuana, a ruling that narrows the same federal gun law once used to charge Hunter Biden.
The case centered on Ali Hemani, a Texas resident whose home was raided by FBI agents who found a handgun he kept for self-defense. Hemani admitted to smoking marijuana about every other day. Federal prosecutors charged him with a felony under 18 U.S.C. §922(g)(3), which bars anyone who uses illegal drugs from possessing a firearm.
The Supreme Court held that the prosecution was unconstitutional as applied to Hemani, and the reasoning, authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch, carries a warning that should matter to every American who values the right to keep and bear arms. The government, Gorsuch wrote, tried to justify the modern statute by pointing to old colonial-era laws that restricted firearms for "habitual drunkards." The Court found the comparison fell apart on every front.
The majority opinion did not hold back. As Fox News reported, Gorsuch wrote that the government's analogy to historical "habitual drunkard" laws failed completely:
"The government's analogy fails under every measure it asks us to consider. The historical laws on which it relies targeted different kinds of people, did so for different reasons, and operated in different ways."
That is about as clean a rejection as you will find in Supreme Court prose. The historical laws the government cited dealt with people so impaired by alcohol that they had lost the regular use of their reason. Hemani was not alleged to be addicted. Prosecutors never claimed he had used a firearm while intoxicated, threatened anyone, or posed a danger to himself or others. Their entire case rested on his admission that he smoked marijuana regularly.
Gorsuch pressed the point further, noting the law's breathtaking sweep. Under the government's reading, anyone who takes a controlled substance, including, hypothetically, someone prescribed Adderall or Ambien, could be stripped of gun rights. The justice warned against handing Washington that kind of open-ended authority:
"Affording the government 'broad power to designate any group as dangerous and thereby disqualify its members from having a gun' would risk allowing it to 'quickly swallow' the Second Amendment."
That line should concentrate the mind of anyone who has watched federal agencies expand their reach over the past decade. The current Supreme Court term has produced a string of consequential rulings, and this one reinforces a principle the Court has been sharpening since its landmark Second Amendment decisions: the government must ground firearm restrictions in the nation's actual historical tradition, not in modern political preferences.
Perhaps the most pointed section of Gorsuch's opinion addressed the federal government's own conduct on marijuana. The Court noted that most states now permit some form of marijuana use. And the federal government itself has moved to reduce marijuana enforcement and reclassify the drug to a less restrictive schedule.
Gorsuch did not let that contradiction pass without comment:
"Whatever one thinks of these developments, the federal government has not just tolerated them; it helped fuel them."
So the same government that has been actively softening its stance on marijuana prosecuted a man for exercising a constitutional right because he used the very substance it was in the process of de-prioritizing. That is not principled enforcement. It is incoherent policy, the kind of selective prosecution that erodes public trust in federal law enforcement.
The Court has dealt with questions of federal overreach in other recent cases, and this ruling fits a pattern: the justices are increasingly unwilling to let the government assert sweeping authority without a solid constitutional foundation.
The Court was careful to limit its holding. Gorsuch stated explicitly that the ruling does not address the government's power to disarm addicts, people who are actively intoxicated, felons, or drug users who have been shown to pose a danger.
"We do not address efforts to ban addicts, or those presently intoxicated, from possessing a firearm."
Justices Samuel Alito and Elena Kagan concurred in the judgment but wrote separately. Alito, joined by Kagan, emphasized the gap between the government's historical evidence and its legal theory. He wrote that the "mismatch" between the old "habitual drunkard" laws and the modern statute was "clear."
The fact that Alito and Kagan, who rarely land on the same page, both found the government's case wanting tells you how far prosecutors overreached. This was not a 5-4 ideological split. It was a 9-0 rebuke.
Legal commentators on the right welcomed the decision as a meaningful, if measured, victory. Carrie Severino, president of the Judicial Crisis Network, framed the ruling in terms the Founders themselves might have appreciated:
"It's a good day for the Second Amendment when all nine justices can agree to protect gun rights. The mere fact of illegal drug use, without more, isn't enough to justify prosecution for gun ownership. Historically, 'habitual drunkards' who habitually lost use of their reason could have their rights restricted, but not just regular drinkers, even including Founding Fathers like John Adams, who drank 'a tankard of hard cider' with breakfast, or James Madison, who 'consumed a pint of whisky daily.'"
Severino added that Hemani, who she described as using marijuana a few times a week, did not fit the historical profile of someone so impaired that the government could strip his rights on that basis alone.
Tyler Yzaguirre, president of the Second Amendment Institute, said the ruling reinforced a core constitutional principle. In a term where the Court has been active on multiple fronts, Yzaguirre noted that the justices sent a clear signal:
"While the justices offered different legal reasoning, they unanimously agreed that applying this federal gun ban to Hemani violated the Second Amendment. This ruling reinforces the principle that firearm restrictions must be consistent with our nation's historical tradition of gun regulation, not modern political preferences."
Amy Swearer, a senior legal fellow at Advancing American Freedom, told Fox News Digital that gun-control advocates would overstate the ruling's impact. She pushed back preemptively:
"Gun control activists will inevitably claim that the sky is falling. It isn't. The ruling still leaves the government room to disarm addicts or prosecute people who possess firearms while actively intoxicated."
The federal statute at issue, §922(g)(3), is the same law prosecutors used to charge Hunter Biden. The ruling does not directly address his case, and the Court's opinion is limited to the facts before it. But the decision raises obvious questions about the viability of that charge going forward.
The Court made clear that the government cannot simply declare an entire category of people dangerous and revoke their gun rights without historical justification. Whether that principle applies to Hunter Biden's circumstances, which involved different facts and a different procedural posture, remains an open question.
What is not an open question is the principle itself. The Supreme Court has shown this term that it will not rubber-stamp government action simply because Washington asserts a compelling interest. The justices want to see the receipts, historical receipts, specifically, and in this case, the government came up empty.
The decision is narrow in its direct application. It covers Ali Hemani. It does not legalize drug use. It does not prevent the government from prosecuting armed drug traffickers or people who handle firearms while intoxicated. It does not touch felon-in-possession laws.
But the principle it establishes is broader than any single case. The government argued it could designate regular marijuana users as categorically dangerous and strip their constitutional rights. Nine justices said no. The historical test the Court applied, requiring the government to find genuine analogues in the Founding-era tradition, sets a high bar for future prosecutions under §922(g)(3) and potentially for other firearm restrictions built on similar logic.
In an era when emergency appeals and high-stakes constitutional disputes arrive at the Court's doorstep with increasing frequency, this ruling is a reminder that the Second Amendment is not a second-class right. The government must meet the same rigorous standard it would face when restricting speech, religious exercise, or any other enumerated freedom.
The federal government prosecuted a man for keeping a handgun in his own home. It never alleged he was an addict. It never alleged he was dangerous. It never alleged he had threatened anyone. Its sole basis was that he used a substance the government itself was in the process of deprioritizing.
And then it asked the Supreme Court to uphold that prosecution by comparing him to colonial-era drunks who had lost the use of their faculties.
Every justice on the bench saw through it.
When the federal government cannot convince a single member of a Court that spans the ideological spectrum, the problem is not the Court. The problem is a law that gave prosecutors the power to criminalize a constitutional right based on nothing more than a policy preference, and a government willing to use it.