The Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that the federal government cannot prosecute a marijuana user for possessing a firearm, handing a major Second Amendment victory to a Texas man who faced up to 15 years in prison for keeping a Glock pistol in his family home.
Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion in United States v. Hemani, dismantling the government’s argument that a 1968 federal statute could strip gun rights from anyone who uses marijuana, without any individualized showing that the person posed a danger. The decision was unanimous, though only six justices joined Gorsuch’s full opinion, with the remaining three agreeing in the judgment.
The ruling marks another expansion of gun rights from a Court that has moved steadily in that direction since its landmark 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. And it exposes a glaring contradiction at the heart of the federal government’s position: Washington has spent years tolerating, and in some cases actively encouraging, the spread of state-level marijuana legalization, while simultaneously treating every regular user as too dangerous to own a firearm.
The facts were straightforward. FBI agents searched the family home of Ali Danial Hemani in Texas and found a Glock-19 pistol, 60 grams of marijuana, and 4.7 grams of cocaine. Federal prosecutors charged Hemani under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3), a provision of the Gun Control Act of 1968 that forbids any “unlawful drug user” from buying, owning, or possessing a firearm. A conviction carries up to 15 years in federal prison.
The government’s theory was broad: any person who regularly uses marijuana is automatically disqualified from Second Amendment protections, period. No need to prove the person was intoxicated at the time. No need to prove the person was violent. No need to prove anything beyond the habit itself.
Gorsuch and eight of his colleagues said the Constitution does not permit that.
The government leaned on an analogy to historical laws that disarmed “habitual drunkards” in the founding era, arguing those statutes justified a modern blanket ban on gun possession by drug users. Gorsuch, writing for the Court, rejected that comparison in unusually direct terms.
As Breitbart News reported, the majority opinion stated:
“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. And faced with all these shortcomings in the government’s submission, we cannot say it has carried its conceded burden of showing its prosecution of Mr. Hemani complies with the Second Amendment.”
The opinion did not hold back about the government’s burden. The Court noted that the government itself had conceded it bore the responsibility of demonstrating a historical tradition supporting the regulation. It failed to meet that standard.
During oral arguments on March 2, 2026, Gorsuch had previewed his skepticism with a memorable line of questioning directed at Principal Deputy Solicitor General Sarah Harris. He pointed to the drinking habits of the nation’s founders, noting that John Adams “took a tankard of hard cider with his breakfast every day” and that James Madison “reportedly drank a pint of whiskey every day.” He also referenced Thomas Jefferson’s alcohol consumption.
Then Gorsuch posed the question that cut to the core of the government’s position:
“Are they all habitual drunkards who would be properly disarmed for life under your theory?”
The justice also cited the American Temperance Society’s own founding-era standard, which held that eight shots of whiskey a day made someone merely an “occasional drunkard.” To qualify as habitual, Gorsuch noted, “you had to do double that.” The government’s attempt to equate a modern marijuana user with a founding-era habitual drunkard was, by the Court’s analysis, historically baseless.
Gorsuch was careful to limit the decision’s immediate reach. The opinion does not invalidate the entire statute. It does not prevent the government from restricting firearm access for drug addicts or people who are actively intoxicated. As Gorsuch wrote, “We do not address efforts to ban addicts, or those presently intoxicated, from possessing a firearm.”
What the ruling does is forbid the government from categorically stripping gun rights from every regular marijuana user without any individualized proof of danger. That distinction matters. The National Review noted that all nine justices agreed marijuana users are not categorically too dangerous to exercise Second Amendment rights, a consensus that would have been difficult to imagine even a decade ago.
The Court has been active this term, issuing consequential rulings across a range of issues. In another recent decision, the justices let a lawsuit by Carter Page against former FBI Director James Comey die, shielding him from personal liability over surveillance abuses.
Amy Swearer of Advancing American Freedom praised the Hemani decision. “The Court’s decision today affirms one of the most basic tenets of the Second Amendment, the government may only disarm people whom it can prove are violent and unusually dangerous, based on individualized proof presented in legal proceedings,” she said.
Perhaps the most cutting passage in Gorsuch’s opinion addressed the federal government’s own role in normalizing marijuana use across the country. Dozens of states have legalized marijuana for medical or recreational purposes, and federal enforcement against users in those states has been minimal for years.
Gorsuch did not let that contradiction pass without comment. As Newsmax reported, the majority opinion stated:
“Whatever one thinks of these developments, the federal government has not just tolerated them; it helped fuel them. All of which leaves it awkwardly positioned to suggest that the millions of Americans who now regularly use marijuana are categorically and unusually dangerous.”
That passage captures the fundamental dishonesty of the government’s stance. Federal agencies have looked the other way as state after state legalized marijuana. The Department of Justice under multiple administrations declined to prosecute users in legal states. Yet when it came to gun rights, the same government insisted every one of those millions of users was too dangerous to own a firearm.
The ruling also drew unusual political alliances. Both the ACLU and the NRA supported Hemani’s case, a rare alignment that reflects how broadly the government overreached.
The federal statute at the center of Hemani is the same law that produced one of the three gun charges against Hunter Biden in 2024. Biden was convicted in a Wilmington, Delaware, federal court of illegally purchasing a firearm while being an unlawful drug user. His father, President Joe Biden, later pardoned him.
The Hemani ruling does not retroactively affect that case, given the pardon. But it does raise the question of whether the law that formed the basis of those charges was constitutional in the first place, a question the Court has now answered, at least as applied to regular users who are not proven addicts or actively intoxicated.
The Supreme Court’s willingness to confront the executive branch head-on has defined this era. The justices have not hesitated to check federal power, whether the issue involves redistricting disputes or the scope of individual rights.
Justice Clarence Thomas joined the unanimous result but wrote separately to warn that the problems with the federal firearms ban extend beyond Hemani’s case. Thomas used his concurrence to flag what he described as “other outgrowths of the federal ban that he believes need correcting.”
The specifics of Thomas’s concurrence were not detailed in available reporting, but his track record suggests he may be pointing toward broader challenges to § 922(g), the umbrella statute that restricts gun possession for various categories of people, including felons, domestic violence offenders, and those adjudicated as mentally ill. Thomas has long argued for a more rigorous historical test for all firearm regulations.
Gorsuch himself has drawn attention this term for his willingness to apply constitutional principles without regard to political convenience. The justice was named by President Trump in a sharp rebuke after an earlier ruling this term on tariff authority, a reminder that principled jurisprudence does not always align neatly with any administration’s preferences.
The practical effect of Hemani is significant. Millions of Americans in states where marijuana is legal have technically been federal felons every time they touched a firearm. That legal reality was always absurd on its face, and the Court has now said so.
The ruling does not open the door to unrestricted gun ownership for all drug users. Prosecutors can still pursue cases against addicts and individuals who are intoxicated while in possession of firearms. But the government can no longer treat marijuana use alone as an automatic disqualifier.
The Court has also continued its pattern of issuing major decisions that reshape the legal landscape. Just this term, the justices overturned a decades-old murder conviction in another case that tested the limits of government power.
For Second Amendment advocates, the 9-0 vote is the most important number. Not a single justice, not even those appointed by Democratic presidents, was willing to endorse the government’s theory that millions of law-abiding marijuana users can be stripped of a constitutional right without any proof they pose a threat to anyone.
When the federal government spends years helping normalize marijuana use and then tries to criminalize the people who use it for exercising their constitutional rights, it should not take a Supreme Court ruling to spot the problem. But at least the Court was willing to say what common sense already made plain.
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