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Supreme Court to Hear Case on Law Barring Drug Users From Gun Ownership

October 21, 2025

The United States Supreme Court has agreed to review United States v. Hemani, a case involving a Texas man who was charged under a federal statute that prohibits firearm possession by anyone “who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance.”

During a 2022 FBI search of Hemani’s residence, agents found a Glock 9mm pistol in addition to 60 grams of marijuana and 4.7 grams of cocaine.  Hemani was not under the influence of any illegal substances nor in physical possession of the firearm when it was discovered.

The case was initially dismissed by U.S. District Judge Amos Mazzant, using a 2023 decision from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in United States v. Daniels.

In that case, the appellate court relied on the 2022 Bruen decision, which “clarified that firearms regulations are unconstitutional unless they are firmly rooted in our nation’s history and tradition of gun regulation.”

The district court in Daniels initially denied a motion to dismiss under the standard ordered under Bruen, finding that the statute “was a longstanding gun regulation.”

The appellate court, however, argued that, despite the law being passed in 1968, “The court placed great weight on that regulatory tradition but engaged with few historical sources from the Founding or Reconstruction, relying instead on statements from other courts – notably predating Bruen …”

At issue in this case isn’t whether or not you can possess a firearm while under the influence of an illegal substance, but whether any usage of an illegal substance prohibits ownership of a firearm.  Both district courts and appellate courts “are not divided over the issue,” according to scotusblog.com.

Scotusblog.com writes:

The government came to the Supreme Court in June, asking the justices to take up the case. U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer acknowledged that “[t]he Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental right that is essential to ordered liberty,” and that “[u]njustifiable restrictions on that right present a grave threat to Americans’ most cherished freedoms.”

But, Sauer continued, the federal law at the center of the case is one of the “narrow circumstances in which the government may justifiably burden that right.” First, he contended, because the law bars only habitual drug users from having a gun, it “imposes a limited, inherently temporary restriction—one which the individual can remove at any time simply by ceasing his unlawful drug use.”

Second, he wrote, the law “stands solidly within our Nation’s history and tradition of regulation” of firearms, a key inquiry in determining whether gun restrictions are constitutional. Sauer characterized the law as “a modest, modern analogue” of early American restrictions on the possession of guns by “habitual drunkards.” Third, he added, “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.”

Hemani urged the court to leave the 5th Circuit’s ruling in place. He contended that the courts of appeals are not divided over the issue, which is a criterion on which the justices often rely in deciding whether to grant review. Moreover, he suggested, his case would not be a good one in which to weigh in on the law’s constitutionality because the government did not make its arguments regarding the historical support for the law in the lower courts.

The Gateway Pundit has previously reported on a similar case from 2023, in which a federal judge in Oklahoma ruled that “…the mere use of marijuana carries none of the characteristics that the Nation’s history and tradition of firearm regulation supports.”

If the Supreme Court decides the law is constitutional, it could result in the revocation of gun rights for millions of Americans, especially veterans, who use the plant for medicinal purposes.

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