All nine justices agreed Thursday that the federal government cannot prosecute a Texas man for owning a firearm simply because he used marijuana, a decision that narrows one of the oldest federal gun restrictions on the books and sets new limits on Washington's power to disarm millions of Americans who have never threatened anyone.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for a unanimous court, held that the longstanding ban on gun possession by unlawful drug users violates the Second Amendment as applied to Ali Danial Hemani, a Texas resident who admitted to smoking marijuana every other day while keeping a Glock 9mm pistol in his home. Hemani was neither intoxicated nor holding the weapon when federal agents arrested him. He faced a single charge that carried up to 15 years in prison.
The ruling affirms a lower federal appeals court decision that had already tossed Hemani's indictment. And it delivers a pointed rebuke to a federal government that, as Gorsuch noted, has itself helped loosen marijuana restrictions even as it continued prosecuting users for exercising a constitutional right.
The opinion, as ABC News reported, is deliberately narrow. Gorsuch stressed that the decision does not disturb the federal ban on firearms for drug addicts, for people who are presently intoxicated, or for individuals deemed a danger to themselves or others. Those provisions remain intact.
But the core holding is unmistakable. The government tried to argue it could categorically strip gun rights from anyone who uses a controlled substance, without proving that person posed any danger at all. The Court rejected that sweeping claim.
Gorsuch put it plainly in the opinion:
"We do not question that sometimes an individual's unlawful use of marijuana (or any other controlled substance) may render him a danger to others. But, again, the government disclaims the need to show anything like that in this case.... affording the government that kind of broad power to designate any group as dangerous and thereby disqualify its members from having a gun would risk allowing it to quickly swallow the Second Amendment."
That last line matters. The Court recognized what Second Amendment advocates have long warned: if the government can strip constitutional rights from an entire class of people based on nothing more than a label, no right is safe.
The decision follows a wave of Second Amendment challenges that have reached the high court since its landmark 2022 gun rights expansion, which required firearms restrictions to be grounded in historical tradition.
One of the most striking elements of the ruling is how directly Gorsuch called out the federal government's contradictions on marijuana policy. More than 40 states have legalized the drug in some form. The federal government itself has relaxed enforcement and, in various ways, facilitated that shift.
Yet the Justice Department continued prosecuting roughly 300 cases per year in which the drug-user gun ban was a leading charge, targeting people whose only offense was possessing a firearm while using a substance their own state had legalized.
As Newsmax reported, Gorsuch addressed this tension directly in the opinion: "Whatever one thinks of these developments, the federal government has not just tolerated them; it helped fuel them. All of which leaves it awkwardly positioned to suggest that the millions of Americans who now regularly use marijuana are categorically and unusually dangerous."
That is not a throwaway line. It is a sitting Supreme Court justice telling the executive branch that its own conduct undermines its legal argument.
The unanimity of the decision is worth pausing on. This was not a 5-4 split along familiar ideological lines. All nine justices, appointed by presidents of both parties, agreed the government overreached. The New York Post noted that both conservative and liberal justices filed concurrences, crossing ideological boundaries.
The ACLU and the NRA found themselves on the same side. That alone tells you something about how far the government's position had drifted from constitutional moorings.
Cecillia Wang, the ACLU's legal director, said in a written statement:
"Today's unanimous 9-0 decision makes it clear that the government cannot make it a crime for people to own a gun, which the Supreme Court has held is a fundamental constitutional right, simply because they use marijuana."
Wang added that "nearly half of Americans" have reported marijuana use at some point in their lives, and that the ruling "curbs the government's ability to impose arbitrary and discriminatory penalties."
This term has produced several unanimous rulings on constitutional rights questions, a pattern that suggests the justices can still find common ground when the government's position is indefensible.
John Commerford, executive director of the NRA's Institute for Legislative Action, told ABC News the decision vindicated a straightforward principle:
"No one should be deprived of their God-given right to keep and bear arms for engaging in nonviolent conduct, and there is no historical justification for doing so."
On the other side, Brady president Kris Brown sought to limit the ruling's reach. Brown said the Court "reaffirmed the ability of legislatures to restrict firearms access by certain categories of people," characterizing the bulk of the federal law as still intact.
That framing is technically accurate but misses the larger point. The Court did not merely trim one provision. It established that the government must demonstrate an actual basis for disarming someone, not just wave at a broad category and declare the matter settled. That principle will echo through future cases.
Carrie Severino, president of the Judicial Crisis Network, captured the moment's significance in a statement cited by Fox News: "It's a good day for the Second Amendment when all nine justices can agree to protect gun rights."
The federal statute at issue is the same law used to prosecute Hunter Biden for purchasing a firearm while addicted to cocaine. ABC News noted, however, that Thursday's ruling would not have prevented that prosecution. Biden was "a known and admitted drug addict while in possession of a firearm", a category the Court explicitly left within the government's reach. Biden received a presidential pardon in December 2024.
The distinction matters. The Court drew a clear line between habitual use and addiction. Hemani smoked marijuana regularly but was not classified as an addict. He was not intoxicated when arrested. He was not holding the gun. The government never alleged he was dangerous. It simply argued that his drug use, standing alone, was enough to send him to federal prison for up to 15 years and strip his constitutional rights permanently.
Nine justices said no.
The practical effect is significant. As Breitbart reported, the ruling shields habitual marijuana users from prosecution under the federal drug-user gun ban, a protection that extends to millions of Americans in the more than 40 states where some form of marijuana is legal. The Justice Department's roughly 300 annual prosecutions under this provision now face a much higher constitutional bar.
Gorsuch emphasized that the ruling is narrow and focused on marijuana users, not addicts of other controlled substances. But the reasoning, that the government cannot categorically disarm a group without showing its members are actually dangerous, will inevitably be tested in new cases. Defense attorneys will cite this opinion. Prosecutors will have to adjust.
The Court's recent willingness to enforce constitutional limits on federal power, even when doing so is politically inconvenient, is one of the most consequential developments of the current term.
It is also worth noting the Trump administration's posture in this case. The administration defended the 1968 law alongside gun safety groups like Brady, an unusual alignment that the Court overruled without hesitation. The justices, including those appointed by President Trump, followed the Constitution where it led. That is how the system is supposed to work.
The current Supreme Court term has produced no shortage of consequential opinions. Thursday's ruling may not generate the loudest headlines, but its principle is foundational: the government does not get to erase a constitutional right by declaring an entire class of citizens presumptively dangerous, and then refusing to prove it.
For decades, federal prosecutors could charge a lawful gun owner with a felony carrying 15 years in prison, not because he threatened anyone, not because he was intoxicated, not because he was an addict, but because he used a substance that his own state had legalized. The government never had to show he was dangerous. It just had to show he used marijuana.
All nine justices looked at that arrangement and said the Second Amendment does not permit it.
When the ACLU and the NRA agree, and when every justice appointed by every president reaches the same conclusion, the government's position was not a close call. It was an overreach, and the Constitution, for once, caught up with it.
