The Supreme Court is considering whether those who use illegal drugs can own firearms.
The case comes as the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that laws prohibiting anyone who is “an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance” from having firearms violate the Second Amendment.
“By disqualifying only habitual users of illegal drugs from possessing firearms, the statute imposes a limited, inherently temporary restriction—one which the individual can remove at any time simply by ceasing his unlawful drug use,” Solicitor General John Sauer wrote in the petition. “This restriction provides a modest, modern analogue of much harsher founding-era restrictions on habitual drunkards, and so it stands solidly within our Nation’s history and tradition of regulation.”
“The Fifth Circuit erred in holding that the Second Amendment precludes Congress from restricting the possession of firearms by habitual users of illegal drugs,” the petition adds. “The court’s decision invalidates an important federal statute in the vast majority of its applications and exacerbates a multi-sided circuit conflict. This Court should grant the petition for a writ of certiorari and reverse.”
The case surrounds Ali Danial Hemani, a dual citizen of the United States and Pakistan, who is described as a “drug dealer who uses illegal drugs.” The petition explains that Hemani was “poised to commit fraud at the
direction of suspected affiliates of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, a designated foreign terrorist organization.” His mother was also shown on video expressing a desire that her two sons, one of whom is Hemani, would become martyrs.
