The U.S. Supreme Court is holding a hearing in a case that will determine the constitutionality of a widely contested federal law prohibiting people who use marijuana from owning or possessing firearms.
After years of legal challenges to the federal statute, Section 922(g)(3), in courtrooms across the country, justices on Monday are hearing oral arguments in U.S. vs. Hemani and will put questions to the Trump administration’s Justice Department and attorneys for Ali Danial Hemani, who challenged his conviction for unlawful possession of a gun as a person who regularly used cannabis.
The federal government has consistently maintained its position that the law appropriately disarms marijuana users who, they claim, are uniquely dangerous. To meet a strict Supreme Court standard for firearm laws, DOJ has also drawn sometimes eyebrow-raising comparisons between cannabis consumers and the mentally ill and habitual drunkards to establish a historical analogue that aligns with the country’s founding era.
On the other side of the debate, civil rights groups—including the ACLU, whose attorneys are among those representing Hemani—and gun organizations such as the National Rifle Association (NRA) have argued that the current policy represents a misguided categorical infringement of Second Amendment rights for a population that uses
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