How Gun Owners Will Be Effected By The Supreme Court's New Ruling

[00:00:01][music] >> In a unanimous decision Thursday, the US Supreme Court [music] agreed that a regular drug user cannot be stripped of the Second Amendment right to keep and possess a firearm.

[00:00:17]That case, Hamani v. U.S., focused on Texas man Ali Hamani, who was prosecuted by federal authorities after the FBI found marijuana, cocaine, and a pistol in his home. Now, under federal law, an unlawful drug user can be stripped of their right to possess a firearm.

[00:00:36]Justices on the high court said today the government cannot prosecute people who are unlawful drug users. Lawyers for the government said laws against habitual drug users are similar to founding era laws against habitual drunkards, but the justices had a different take.

[00:00:55]Joining us to further break this story down is the Center Square reporter Andrew Rice.

[00:01:00]Andrew, uh obviously the Supreme Court has different uh political leanings depending on who you're appointing to, but here we've got a unanimous decision.

[00:01:10]How significant is that?

[00:01:12]>> Right. Uh a unanimous decision of any kind in the Supreme Court is very significant, but particularly with uh this decision, we're seeing uh it an even greater significance. And it truly does reflect uh how this case has gone about. As you laid out, Greg, this case has uh brought together uh proponents for recreational drug use, including recreational marijuana, and a lot of proponents for Second Amendment rights. Two groups that often you don't see coming alongside one another. Um and and that's how you get a decision that ultimately is unanimous, where uh one of the more conservative justices of the court, like Clarence Thomas, can agree with one of the traditionally seen as more liberal justices of the court like Ketanji Brown Jackson.

[00:02:00]That's how we saw this unanimous unanimous decision today and it's allowing like you said regular drug users to possess firearms moving forward.

[00:02:11]>> We're going to see how this ripples out across the country. Is it going to change the forms that people have to you know fill out every time they purchase a firearm? I mean these types of questions are asked to people purchasing guns whether or not they use cannabis even if it's legal in a state. So we'll be watching how that develops but let's just stick with this ruling here because some interesting things being said. The ruling says the government's prosecution of Mr. Harmoni under the law unlawful users it's inconsistent with the Second Amendment. They also said the government's analogy fails on every metric it invites to the court to consider. Taken humanitively these problems prove fatal to the government's prosecution of Mr. Harmoni.

[00:02:54]And they even note that the Department of Justice has directed federal prosecutors to curtail enforcement efforts against marijuana users most states legalizing marijuana for some degree of use and the government recently moving some marijuana products from schedule one to schedule three.

[00:03:11]Seems they had a counter to everything that federal prosecutors were trying to say but let's get down to hear what they're ultimately arguing you know in the court when they heard it earlier this year to what the order says. It all boils down to a case that came out of New York and that's the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen case about governments having to find analogous examples from founding era documents to support any kind of gun control efforts. What was the government's position? What were they trying to say oh this this is analogous with that historic tradition?

[00:03:50]>> Right. Well the the government was attempting to use that as what's commonly referred to as the Bruen decision that you mentioned, Greg, that decision out of New York several years ago. In that decision, uh Justice Clarence Thomas created a a sort of test that uh that governments uh when seeking to restrict Second Amendment rights need to find a historical analog uh to do so.

[00:04:13]In this case, federal prosecutors were looking at uh using habitual drunkard laws from around the founding era um to place these restrictions. Now, some of these habitual drunkard laws uh they would place restrictions on individuals who would go out in public, cause a scene, uh cause danger to other people because of that uh because of the intensity of uh their character change once they were uh once they were found under the most they were drunk, quite frankly.

[00:04:44]And uh so, the federal prosecutors were seeking to uh draw a connection between this and that marijuana use. However, justices on the court just didn't see that holding up. The justices said throughout the opinion that um and throughout concurring opinions that the laws against habitual drunkards were really more tailored to the effect that they had on the community. And and those and the justices just didn't agree that someone who maybe occasionally used marijuana or occasionally took partook in an illicit drug substance was having that same uh disruptive effect on the community that those founding era laws were set to uh prohibit.

[00:05:23]>> And here's a a quote from the uh from the ruling released today by the US Supreme Court. Uh they said affording the government broad power to designate any group as dangerous and thereby disqualifying its members from having a gun would risk allowing the government to quickly swallow the Second Amendment.

[00:05:44]Uh Andrew, it seems that uh this court at least, uh showing their their deference to the Second Amendment being a absolute right.

[00:05:55]>> Exactly.

[00:05:56]Across that broad political spectrum, it seems like the the court is certainly looking to show that the Second Amendment is that absolute right. That you can't pull maybe an obscure drunkard law from the founding era or other obscure laws from the founding era to restrict the rights of these individuals.

[00:06:16]It's worth mentioning in the record, it was never mentioned how often Mr. Hamani partook in marijuana, how regularly he he did it. He rather regularly used the substance or even how much it affected him.

[00:06:30]And and that was really a key element to this as well. Determining how dangerous an individual could be once on the substance. And lawyers for Mr. Hamani really argued that, you know, he was he was not dangerous at the time that this he was found with marijuana in his possession or with this gun. And because of that lack of a dangerousness finding, it the justices just couldn't couldn't rule against it. We saw justices even in the argument seeking talking about some other kinds of prescription drugs like Ambien, for example. Justice Amy Coney Barrett mentioned Ambien, whether if if someone took a prescription from somebody else, does that classify within the standard?

[00:07:11]And according to this ruling, it seems like the justices don't agree with that.

[00:07:15]>> Yeah, more from the ruling here. They said it's a narrow ruling. It does not address efforts to ban addicts or those presently intoxicated from possessing a firearm.

[00:07:25]Other prophylactic laws that Congress might adopt after determining that users of a particular drug pose a special risk of misusing firearms. And provisions disarming individuals convicted of felonies or whether the government could bring a prosecution under a certain statute accompanied by individualized proof that the defendant's drug use rendered him a danger and himself and others or proof that a certain drug always renders its users dangerous. So they they did narrow it and they made sure that, you know, hey, we're not saying everybody who uses drugs is is able to have firearms.

[00:07:59]They give some difference to Congress to spell things out a little bit further.

[00:08:02]So we'll see how that plays out. But Justice Gorsuch pinning the ultimate opinion here that several other justices wrote their own concurring opinions. He said, "The historical laws on which it relies targeted different kinds of people. Those are the drunkard laws you talked about and did so for different reasons and it operated in different ways and faced with these shortcomings in the government's submission, we cannot say it has carried its conceded burden of showing its prosecution of Mr. Hamani complies with the Second Amendment." Again, pretty interesting to see this play out, Andrew, as you know, we got other things that are happening with the courts. Tell us a bit about what we can expect for the rest of the term here.

[00:08:46]>> We have a lot heading into these final this final week and a half in in June is really what we're looking at. Typically, the court will end each session by the end of June. Occasionally, in the past few years, they have stepped into the beginning of July, but the justices are, you know, looking to finish this term and they have quite a few cases on that Second Amendment issue. We still have one more pretty significant Second Amendment Amendment case out of Hawaii. That is a ban out of Hawaii on individuals who are concealed carry owners. They are not allowed to bring in their guns or other firearms into a private business that's open to the public. So a restaurant, bar without that owner's permission. So in that case, they kind of flipped that presumption of you can bring it unless we say no, it's you cannot bring it unless we say yes. So, that's another Second Amendment case. Of course, we have to look at this the court is hearing birthright citizenship as well. The an order challenging President Trump's order that would get rid of birthright citizenship for children born to parents that are not citizens after February 2025. This has been in the court in various different ways over the past year and a half. And we're still expecting a decision sometime next week or or later in in that case as well. Some federal firing cases as well. President Trump attempted to fire Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Board of Reserve Board of Governors, excuse me.

[00:10:18]And Rebecca Slaughter, a member of the Federal Trade Commission. So, testing some of President Trump's federal firing power in both of those cases. Still looking at those. And then, of course, a big one the ban on biological men competing in men and women's and girls sports. Those bans out of Idaho and West Virginia. We still haven't heard anything on those cases yet, but should be coming up pretty soon.

[00:10:44]>> It's going to be a a busy final home stretch here for those opinions being released. And also just to note for those who've been trying to track which cases the Supreme Court decides to take up. They're apparently releasing their final orders list Monday. So, Andrew, I know you and I are going to be watching that closely and we'll connect on that soon. But, be sure to subscribe to The States here on YouTube. We'll have more on the developing story around this Hamani case and what it means for gun owners across the country when we connect with William Kirk from Washington [music] Gun Law Friday right here with The States.

[00:11:23]>> [music] [music] >> Mhm.