Supreme Court could loosen law barring marijuana users from owning guns

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court seemed likely Monday to loosen a federal law that bars marijuana users from owning guns in a case that crossed typical political lines.

A majority of justices appeared to lean toward a narrow ruling in favour of a Texas man who argued he shouldn’t have been charged with a crime just because he owned a gun and smoked marijuana a few times a week.

The Trump administration asked the high court to revive a criminal case against Ali Danial Hemani under a law that bans all illegal drug users from owning guns. But both liberal and conservative justices seemed skeptical.

“What is the government’s evidence that using marijuana a couple of times a week makes someone dangerous?” said conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

The Trump administration has asked the court to strike down other gun control laws in the past, but Principal Deputy Solicitor General Sarah Harris defended the illegal drug user law as a reasonable measure to keep firearms from potentially dangerous people.

Justice Neil Gorsuch, though, pointed out that a growing number of states have legalised cannabis, though it remains illegal on a federal level.

“What do we do with the fact that marijuana is sort of illegal and sort of isn’t and that the federal government itself is conflicted on this?” Justice Neil Gorsuch said.

He was part of the conservative majority court that expanded gun rights with a landmark case in 2022 known as New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen.

The court said that any gun laws must have a strong grounding in the nation’s historical traditions. Liberal-leaning Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said a ban on firearms for cannabis users didn’t seem to have strong historical roots.

“I think your argument sort of falls apart under the Bruen test,” she said.

The government pointed to historical laws that barred “habitual drunkards” from having guns, calling that clear historical evidence in favour of the law.

But an attorney for Hemani, Erin Murphy, said those laws were for extreme cases of people who were almost continuously drunk.

There are many modern cannabis users who regularly take gummies as sleep aids, for example, who are very capable of making safe decisions about firearms, Murphy said.

The case made for some unusual political alliances.

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