The Nation, I believe are spot on with their analysis..
his week, the Supreme Court agreed to hear oral arguments in a huge gun case, and in the process laid a trap for the progressive left that too many people are stumbling into. The case has always-online lefties arguing that an expansion of gun rights is the correct political and legal outcome, but that is getting things all twisted.
The case is called US v. Hemani, and it revolves around the application of a federal statute—18 USC Section 922(g)(3)—that prohibits gun ownership for any person who is “an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance.” This is the exact law that Hunter Biden was convicted under—and that led Joe Biden to pardon his son.
The hypocrisy of this law is flagrant. Alcoholics are allowed to own guns. In some counties, you can stumble from your local bar to your local gun shop and be strapped before closing time. It is absurd that a person who is too drunk to operate a car is allowed to carry a gun on their person, but a weed smoker is not allowed to keep a gun in their house. Do you know how many mass shootings have been committed by people who were high on weed? My guess is zero… they all decided to shoot up the place tomorrow.
Ali Danial Hemani challenged the hypocrisy of this law. Hemani’s home in Texas was searched by the FBI in August, 2022. The feds found a Glock 9mm, 60 grams of marijuana (roughly equivalent to two ounces), and 4.7 grams of cocaine. I am going to assume that the FBI was looking for something a little more incriminating than some recreational drugs and a handgun, but, like Hunter Biden, the only thing the government was able to charge Hemani with was this violation of Section 922.
Hemani was able to get his case dismissed. The government could not show that Hemani “was presently or even recently engaged in unlawful drug use.” The government busted this guy for having a gun while possessing drugs, but they couldn’t even prove that he was on the drugs he had in his house. On appeal, the Fifth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of Hemani’s case.
But then, the Trump administration got involved. Solicitor General John Sauer asked the Supreme Court to overturn the dismissal of Hemani’s case, and affirm Section 922 and the government’s right to harass recreational drug users who have guns.
I cannot prove that the Hunter Biden situation had anything to do with the Trump administration’s decision to appeal this case. But everything I know about this small, petty, vindictive administration tells me that it’s pursuing this case to make it look like there was some deep legal principle behind its persecution of the former president’s son. Call it a hunch. Without Hunter, it makes no sense for this administration to appeal a ruling from the most conservative appellate court in the country that further extends Second Amendment rights in Texas.
The Supreme Court’s decision to hear the Trump administration’s appeal makes more sense. That’s because the lower courts are all over the map on how to apply Section 922 nowadays.
There is legitimate legal chaos when it comes to applying this rule, and it all stems from the Supreme Court’s second-worst opinion from 2022, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (the worst case from that term was, of course, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization). Bruen articulated the absolutely insane proposition that for a gun law to be applicable in the 21st century there needs to be a “historical analogue” from the 18th century. What counts as a historical analogue? Nobody really knows! Since the Republicans on the Supreme Court are making this crap up as they go along, nobody can know if some random piece of parchment Nic Cage found in the basement of the Washington Monument counts as enough of an “analogue” to ban tactical nuclear weapons for home defense.
Solicitor General Sauer believes that he has an appropriate analogue that allows the government to keep guns out of the hands of drug users. He cites (wait for it) 18th-century restrictions on gun possession by “habitual drunkards.” That’s right: To support a law that bans drug users, but not alcoholics, from owning guns, the Trump administration is citing laws that banned alcoholics from owning guns. I honestly don’t know how Republicans even write these things down without their brains exploding from the cognitive dissonance.
Read on at
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/supreme-courts-gun-drug-case/
