A majority of the Supreme Court appeared sympathetic on Monday to a Texas man's argument that the federal government cannot strip his Second Amendment rights simply because he uses marijuana. The case could reshape how drug use intersects with gun ownership for millions of Americans.

Ali Danial Hemani, an alleged regular marijuana user and dual citizen of the United States and Pakistan, challenged his indictment after the FBI searched his home in the Dallas area in 2022 and found a handgun, marijuana, and cocaine.

According to NBC News, he successfully fought the charges in district court and at the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Now the nation's highest court will decide whether the federal law barring drug users from possessing firearms can survive constitutional scrutiny.

The Founders Drank... A Lot

The most revealing moments came when conservative justices pressed the government on whether its position had any historical grounding. Justice Neil Gorsuch, a member of the majority in the Court's landmark 2022 ruling recognizing a right to bear arms outside the home, delivered a history lesson that left the government's argument looking thin:

"John Adams took a tankard of hard cider with his breakfast every day. James Madison reportedly drank a pint of whiskey every day. Thomas Jefferson said he wasn't much of a user of alcohol. He only had three or four glasses of wine a night."

The point landed without needing elaboration. If the Founders who wrote the Second Amendment wouldn't have qualified to exercise it under the government's logic, something has gone wrong with the government's logic.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett, also in the 2022 majority, drove the knife deeper. She asked Principal Deputy Solicitor General Sarah Harris directly:

"What is the government's evidence that using marijuana a couple times a week makes someone dangerous?"

Barrett also tested the boundaries of the government's theory with a question that exposed its absurdity through simplicity:

"Is it the government's position that if I unlawfully use Ambien or I unlawfully use Xanax, then I become dangerous?"

Harris responded that the drugs in question "have particular mind-altering effects on the body that can create a serious hazard for firearms use." The government's position, stripped to its core, is that Congress can categorically disarm anyone who uses any substance it classifies as illegal, regardless of whether that person has ever been dangerous, violent, or impaired while handling a firearm.

The Historical Test That Keeps Failing the Government

The 2022 Supreme Court ruling established that firearms regulations must be consistent with the nation's historical tradition of gun regulation. Two years later, the Court upheld a federal law prohibiting people subject to domestic violence restraining orders from possessing firearms, finding sufficient historical support for that restriction. The question now is whether drug use fits the same mold.

The government's best historical analogy involves colonial-era laws disarming "habitual drunkards." But even liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who dissented in the 2022 case, seemed skeptical that the comparison holds:

"All the definitions around habitual alcoholics centered around not merely taking the drug, but the potential effect it had on you, because you couldn't control it and would continue to use it."

In other words, historical disarmament laws targeted people whose substance abuse had demonstrably compromised their capacity. They did not categorically strip rights from anyone who happened to consume a substance the government disapproved of. The 5th Circuit's ruling reflected this distinction, holding that the government must show a gun owner was under the influence at the time of arrest. Prosecutors did not do so in Hemani's case.

The Hunter Biden Shadow

This case carries an unavoidable political echo. Hunter Biden, the son of former President Joe Biden, was convicted under the same federal law in June 2024 before being pardoned by his father. The spectacle of a sitting president's son being prosecuted for drug-related gun possession, only to be rescued by a presidential pardon, did more to highlight the law's selective enforcement than any legal brief could.

Millions of Americans regularly consume marijuana. Many of them own firearms. Under current federal law, every single one of them is a felon. The question the Court must answer is whether the Constitution permits the government to maintain that fiction.

Where the Votes Stand

The Supreme Court has a 6-3 conservative majority, and based on Monday's arguments, a majority of the Court could rule in Hemani's favor. Barrett and Gorsuch asked the sharpest questions challenging the law. Even Sotomayor appeared sympathetic to Hemani's arguments. Justice Samuel Alito, who was in the 2022 majority, appeared to have reservations about ruling in Hemani's favor, suggesting the outcome may not be unanimous.

Chief Justice John Roberts raised practical concerns, warning that a narrow ruling could invite drug-by-drug challenges to the statute. He suggested Hemani's position:

"Takes a fairly cavalier approach to the necessary consideration of expertise and the judgments we leave to Congress and the executive branch."

Roberts's caution is understandable but ultimately conservative in the wrong direction. The Second Amendment does not come with a footnote inviting Congress to define its exceptions. If the historical tradition does not support categorical disarmament of drug users, judicial deference to legislative convenience is not a constitutional principle. It is an abdication of one.

The Bigger Picture

Monday's hearing was the second gun case the Supreme Court is considering this term. In January, the justices heard arguments over a Hawaii law that prevents people from carrying firearms onto certain private properties without permission. The Court also declined Monday to hear a separate case on whether people who commit nonviolent felonies can be prohibited from possessing firearms.

The Trump administration has taken steps toward reclassifying marijuana, which adds another layer to the case. The Justice Department is defending the law in court even as the broader administration moves toward acknowledging that marijuana's current classification may be outdated. Solicitor General D. John Sauer said in court papers that Hemani was already under FBI scrutiny when he was arrested, and the government has asserted that Hemani and his family have ties with Iranian entities hostile to the United States, though he has faced no specific charges relating to those links.

That assertion may color the government's enthusiasm for this particular defendant, but the constitutional question does not change based on who is asking it. Either the Second Amendment protects the right of someone who smokes marijuana a few days a week to keep a handgun in his home, or it doesn't. The Founders who drafted that amendment were drinking whiskey for breakfast. The answer should not be complicated.