Marijuana Gun Rights
Supreme Court sides with Texas man on marijuana users' right to possess guns
The Supreme Court ruled 9-0 on June 18, 2026, that the federal law banning marijuana users from owning guns violates the Second Amendment. The case centered on Ali Danial Hemani, a Texas man who surrendered a Glock 19 and 60 grams of marijuana to federal agents in August 2022, according to AP News.
Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the opinion, warning that giving the government broad power to disarm drug users would risk allowing it to "quickly swallow the Second Amendment." The ruling affects roughly 50 million American adults who use marijuana each year, per TIME.
How a Texas Drug Search Became a Landmark Case
Federal agents searched Hemani's Dallas-area home in August 2022. He cooperated, handing over his pistol and pointing agents to his marijuana. He told investigators he used marijuana "about every other day." A federal grand jury indicted him in February 2023 under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3), a 1968 law that bars gun ownership for anyone who uses illegal drugs, according to AP News.
Lower courts dismissed the indictment, ruling the law unconstitutional as applied to Hemani. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the government's appeal in October 2025. Oral arguments in March 2026 revealed skepticism from justices about the government's historical evidence, Texas Public Radio reported.
Court Rejects the 'Habitual Drunkard' Argument Entirely
The Trump administration's Department of Justice argued that founding-era laws disarming "habitual drunkards" gave legal cover for banning marijuana users from owning guns. The Court rejected this. Those old laws targeted people who were actively drunk in public — not sober individuals storing a firearm at home, according to the Duke Center for Firearms Law.
The government's case also got weaker in April 2026, when the Trump administration reclassified marijuana from a Schedule I to a Schedule III drug. Gorsuch's opinion noted that this shift "undercut" the DOJ's own claim that marijuana users are inherently dangerous, Marijuana Moment reported.
Gun Rights and Marijuana Groups Celebrate; Safety Advocates Warn of Risk
The NRA and Gun Owners of America cheered the ruling. The NRA had argued in court that the ban was "overbroad" and captured "model citizens." NORML added that "for centuries, Americans consumed cannabis without any suggestion that doing so warranted loss of firearms rights," per AP News.
Gun safety groups pushed back. Everytown for Gun Safety said the decision would make it harder to keep weapons away from "potentially dangerous individuals." Legal experts at the Duke Firearms Law Center called the ruling "narrow" — it protects casual users but leaves open whether the government can still disarm proven addicts or people who are actively intoxicated.
Hundreds of Pending Cases Could Now Be Dismissed
About 300 people are charged each year under the same law as a standalone offense, and violating it carries up to 15 years in federal prison, according to AP News. Hundreds of similar challenges are already sitting in lower federal courts. This ruling gives those defendants a strong path to dismissal.
The decision also casts a shadow over Hunter Biden's 2024 conviction under the same statute. Biden was pardoned in December 2024 by his father, but the ruling suggests his firearms conviction was based on an unconstitutional application of the law, AP News reported. Congress may now face pressure to rewrite the law to require proof that a specific individual is dangerous before stripping their gun rights.
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