A case that proposes expanding access to guns for drug users is not an opportunity, but a trap.
Dionne Greene, a survivor of the 2019 mass shooting, speaks outside the Supreme Court.
(Lee Vogel/Getty Images for Giffords Law Center)
This week, the Supreme Court agreed to hear oral arguments in a huge gun case, and in the process set a trap for the progressive left that too many people are falling into. There is a constant presence in this matter of leftists claiming that extension Gun rights are the right political and legal outcome, but it distorts everything.
The case is called US v. Hemaniand it revolves around the application of federal law –18 US Code Section 922(g)(3)— which prohibits gun ownership by any person who is “an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance.” This is the very law under which Hunter Biden was convicted, and it prompted Joe Biden to pardon his son.
The hypocrisy of this law is blatant. Alcoholics are allowed to own guns. In some counties, you can walk to the local gun store from the local bar and be buckled up before closing time. It is absurd that a person who is too drunk to drive is allowed to carry a gun, but a pot smoker is not allowed to keep a gun in the house. Do you know how many mass shootings have been committed by people using weed? I think zero… they all decided to shoot this place tomorrow.
Ali Danial Khemani challenged the hypocrisy of this law. In August 2022, the FBI raided Khemani's home in Texas. equivalent up to two ounces) and 4.7 grams of cocaine. I'm going assume that the FBI was looking for something more incriminating than soft drugs and a gun, but as with Hunter Biden, the only thing the government could charge Khemani with was a Section 922 violation.
Hemani managed to get the case dismissed. The government was unable to prove that Khemani was “currently or even recently engaged in illegal drug use.” The government arrested this guy for carrying a gun and possessing drugs, but they couldn't even prove he was using the drugs he had in his home. On appeal, the Fifth Circuit affirmed Khemani's dismissal.
But then the Trump administration intervened. Solicitor General John Sauer asked the Supreme Court to overturn the dismissal of Khemani's case and uphold Section 922 and the government's right to prosecute drug users who carry guns.
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I cannot prove that the Hunter Biden situation had anything to do with the Trump administration's decision to appeal the case. But all I know about it small, small, revengeful The administration tells me it is pursuing the case to make it appear as if there was some deep legal principle behind the prosecution of the former president's son. Call it a guess. Without Hunter, it makes no sense for this administration to appeal a decision from the most conservative appellate court in the country that further expands Second Amendment rights in Texas.
The Supreme Court's decision to hear the Trump administration's appeal makes more sense. This is because lower courts all over the map on how to apply Section 922 at this time.
There is legitimate legal chaos when it comes to applying this rule, and it all stems from the second-worst Supreme Court opinion of 2022: New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen (the worst case of this term was, of course, Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health). Bridge formulated the absolutely insane claim that in order for gun laws to be applicable in the 21st century, a “historical analogue” of the 18th century is necessary. What is considered a historical analogue? Nobody really knows! Since the Republicans on the Supreme Court are making this bullshit up as they go along, no one Maybe to know whether some random piece of parchment Nic Cage found in the basement of the Washington Monument could be considered a sufficient “analogue” to ban tactical nuclear weapons for home defense.
Attorney General Sauer believes it has the right equivalent to allow the government to keep guns out of the hands of drug users. He quotes (wait for it) 18th century restrictions on gun ownership by “habitual drunkards.” That's right: In support of a law that prohibits drug users, but not alcoholics, from owning guns, the Trump administration cites laws that prohibit alcoholics from owning guns. I honestly don't know how Republicans even write things like this without their brains exploding from cognitive dissonance.
Given the blatant hypocrisy of conservative lawyers, the stupidity of the law in question, and the possible anti-Biden motivation, you can understand why many on the left want the court to decide this case in favor of Khemani and drug users everywhere. But that would be a mistake.
I mentioned that section 922 G-3 This is a law that prohibits the use of guns by drug users and people suffering from drug addiction. Anyone want to know what addresses the other numbers in this section of the law refer to? The law is part of the Gun Control Act of 1968. It was passed in response to all the political murders of the 1960s (there was a time in this country when we solved the problem of political violence by tightening gun laws instead of podcasts). Subpart G defines the categories of persons who are prohibited from possessing firearms. G-2 bans guns to fugitives. G-6 bans people who were dishonorably discharged from the army for continuing to own weapons. The G8 deals with people who are subject to restraining orders. G-9 prohibits people convicted of domestic violence from carrying guns. If the Supreme Court strikes down G-3, they will have the opportunity to throw out a whole bunch of provisions in that law, and given this court, that would be an exceptionally bad outcome.
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Many people, including many of the people on this list, should not own guns. This is the principle for which we must fight. Although I'm not afraid of Matthew McConaughey having guns in Texas. although he was arrested while you're smoking a joint and playing the bongos, any solution that restores gun rights to harmless drug users will open the door to restoring gun rights to people who have committed more sinister crimes. We barely dodged that bullet 18 months ago in USA vs Rahim. In that case, the court ruled 8-1 that guns could be taken away from domestic violence offenders under a restraining order. The Republican judges tried their best to narrow Rahimi's decision (I explained them crazy reasoning at that time), so the specter of violent or insane people drawing weapons is always at the door. If disarming Hunter Biden is the price we have to pay for disarming a convicted criminal like… Donald Trumpthen it will be so.
To address the blatant hypocrisy of drug users whose guns are taken away, it is necessary Congress cancel the partition, not the courts. Congress, the people we elect to do the job for us, and the people we can recall every two years if we don't like what they're doing, is the place to right this wrong.
We must stop criminalizing drug use and addiction. This is the main problem. If you were to solve this, you would solve the whole problem here, without having to go back to 1791 to solve it. The problem is this country's puritanical obsession with recreational drug use, not the legal principle that “convicted criminals should probably not own guns.”
Will this Republican Congress Repeals Hunter Biden's Law? No, of course not. But why didn't Democrats repeal it when they controlled Congress? Why didn't Biden issue a pardon? All who was convicted under this stupid law, and not just his son? I know I'm crying over milk that's spilled, curdled, and been stepped on so hard that it's now turned into cheese, but when I say I want Democrats to run on a platform of decriminalization, that's what I'm talking about. There is a solution to this problem; he simply demands that Congress do its job.
This is not the task of the courts. The Supreme Court must follow the law, even the parts of that law that are clearly stupid and ill-thought out. The last thing we want is for Clarence Thomas to come up with some ahistorical nonsense about why another group of people should have unfettered access to guns just because some Knight of the Round Table got high on nightshade before going to a joust.
Expanding gun rights is never the right answer. Decriminalization of drug addiction usually occurs. Let's focus on the eight ball.
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