by Douglas Ankney

The Supreme Court of the United States held that the Government’s prosecution of Ali Danial Hemani under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3), based solely on his regular marijuana use and without individualized proof that his use rendered him dangerous, is inconsistent with the Second Amendment. Under the historical-tradition framework of New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), the Government’s “habitual drunkard” analogues failed because they targeted different persons, served different purposes, and operated differently.

Background

The federal Gun Control Act bars any “unlawful user of” or person “addicted to” a controlled substance from possessing firearms. 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3). The provision incorporates the Controlled Substances Act (“CSA”), enacted to protect “the health and general welfare of the American people,” 21 U.S.C. § 801(2), so it covers unlawful use of any drug on any CSA schedule. A conviction carries up to 15 years in prison and lifetime disarmament. §§ 922(g)(1), 924(a)(8).

Suspecting terrorism-related activity, law enforcement searched Hemani’s Dallas-area family home in 2022. Hemani cooperated, surrendering a gun kept in the house and admitting that he used marijuana “about every other day.” More than six months later, relying solely on that admission, the Government charged him with knowingly possessing the gun while an unlawful user. It did not contend that Hemani was addicted, that his marijuana use had rendered him dangerous, or that he had done anything with the gun beyond possessing it at home. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas dismissed the indictment as an unconstitutional application of the statute, the Fifth Circuit rejected the Government’s appeal, and the Supreme Court granted certiorari.

Analysis

The Court began its analysis by observing that the Second Amendment protects the right of “all Americans” to keep and bear firearms for self-defense. District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008). When its text covers the conduct at issue, the conduct is presumptively protected, and the Government must show its regulation is “consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” Bruen. No “historical twin” is required. Rather, the regulation must be “consistent with the principles that underpin our regulatory tradition,” which the Government may establish by analogy to historical laws “relevantly similar” in purpose and operation, i.e., the “why” and the “how.” United States v. Rahimi, 602 U.S. 680 (2024); Bruen.

The Government conceded that § 922(g)(3) burdened presumptively protected conduct. According to its construction, the prohibition is triggered when a person becomes a regular unlawful user of any controlled substance and continues until the use ends, regardless of the drug, amount used, or danger presented. The Government relied on three categories of “habitual drunkard” laws: (1) vagrancy laws permitting confinement in workhouses or jails, (2) civil-commitment laws authorizing guardianship or confinement in asylums, and (3) surety laws requiring bonds for good behavior. It argued that those laws targeted regular users of intoxicants, protected the public from “unusually dangerous” persons who might commit violent crimes, and imposed restraints that could place habitual drunkards where they could not bear arms.

The historical laws did not treat a regular or even frequent drinker as a habitual drunkard, according to the Court. Around the founding and for decades afterward, the term generally described someone “intoxicated to such a degree as to deprive him of his ordinary reasoning faculties.” In re Tracy, 1 Paige Ch. 580 (N.Y. Ch. 1829). Statutes commonly required inability to manage one’s affairs, mental incompetence, loss of self-control, or danger to oneself or others. The Court concluded that these laws targeted habitual drunkards because their drinking rendered them “practically incapacitated and incapable of managing their affairs,” not merely because they regularly used intoxicants. Section 922(g)(3), as construed by the Government, instead disarms anyone who regularly uses any amount of any controlled substance outside its prescribed purpose, without proof of incapacity or danger.

The Court explained that the analogues also served different purposes. Vagrancy laws targeted those who “did not meet the societal expectation of work” and generally sought to promote productivity and suppress perceived vice. Civil-commitment laws sought less to protect the public from violence than to protect habitual drunkards from themselves and their families from financial ruin. Act of Apr. 12, 1827, in 1827 Mich. Terr. Laws 60; Act of May 1, 1890, § 2, in 1890 Iowa Acts 67.

The Court also distinguished the sureties of the peace discussed in Rahimi from the sureties of good behavior invoked here. Sureties of the peace generally required a specific threat of violence and helped support § 922(g)(8)’s restriction on certain persons subject to domestic-violence restraining orders. Habitual drunkenness alone ordinarily did not suffice. In contrast, sureties of good behavior addressed scandalous conduct, including habitual drunkenness, profanity, or frequenting bawdy houses, and generally protected against offenses “against good morals,” not persons shown to threaten violence. J. Parker, Conductor Generalis 410 (1788); 1 Del. Laws 173 (1797); 5 N. Dane, A General Abridgment and Digest of American Law 301 (1824). Thus, they did not share the public-safety purpose the Government attributed to § 922(g)(3), the Court determined.

It stated that the historical laws ordinarily required process before any loss of liberty. Confinement followed a conviction, guardianship or asylum commitment followed proceedings before a probate court or similar body, and surety bonds followed proceedings before a justice of the peace. Unlike those laws, § 922(g)(3) automatically removes the right to possess firearms from the moment a person becomes an unlawful user until the use ends, without pre-deprivation process. Although an unlawful user receives a criminal trial before imprisonment or permanent disarmament, the statute supplies no process before the temporary disarmament that the Government analogized to the historical restraints, the Court noted.

It also identified two reasons to doubt that § 922(g)(3) reaches only categorically violent and unusually dangerous persons. First, the provision incorporates the CSA, under which drugs may be scheduled for reasons having little or nothing to do with violence, including public-health concerns and scientific knowledge. 21 U.S.C. § 811(c). Second, the Government’s own conduct undermined its position. The Justice Department had curtailed enforcement against marijuana users, most states had legalized marijuana use to some degree, and after oral argument, the Government moved some marijuana products from Schedule I to Schedule III. 91 Fed. Reg. 22714 (2026). Although unlawful drug use may sometimes make an individual dangerous, the Government disclaimed any need to prove dangerousness here. Affording it a “broad power to designate any group as dangerous and thereby disqualify its members from having a gun” risked allowing it to “quickly swallow” the Second Amendment. Kanter v. Barr, 919 F.3d 437 (7th Cir. 2019) (Barrett, J., dissenting).

The Court held that the defects in the Government’s analogy were fatal cumulatively, without deciding whether any one alone would suffice or whether 1791 or 1868 supplies the controlling historical baseline. It did not address firearm restrictions on addicts or persons presently intoxicated; laws directed at users of a particular drug shown to create a special risk of firearm misuse; § 922(g)(1)’s prohibition for convicted felons; or a § 922(g)(3) prosecution supported by individualized proof that the defendant’s drug use rendered him dangerous or that a particular drug invariably renders its users dangerous. Nor did the Court cast doubt on § 922(g)(1) or § 922(g)(4), both of which involve pre-deprivation process.

Conclusion

The Government failed to carry its conceded burden. Accordingly, the Court affirmed the Fifth Circuit’s judgment. See: United States v. Hemani, 146 S. Ct. 1677 (2026). 

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