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WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court said on Monday that it will consider whether people who regularly smoke marijuana can legally own guns, the latest firearm case to come before the court since its 2022 decision expanding gun rights. President Donald Trump's administration asked the justices to revive a case against a Texas man charged with a felony because he reportedly had a gun in his home and acknowledged being a regular pot user. The Justice Department appealed after a lower court largely struck down a law that bars people who use any illegal drugs from having guns. Last year, a jury convicted Hunter Biden of violating the law, among other charges. His father, then-President Joe Biden, pardoned his son in December 2024, before he could be sentenced for the crime. Arguments probably will take place early in 2026, with a decision likely by early summer. The Republican administration favors Second Amendment rights, but government attorneys argued that this ban is a justifiable restriction. They asked the court to reinstate a case against Ali Danial Hemani. His lawyers got the felony charge tossed out after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that the blanket ban is unconstitutional under the Supreme Court's expanded view of gun rights. The appellate judges found it could still be used against people accused of being high and armed at the same time, though. Hemani's attorneys argue the broadly written law puts millions of people at risk of technical violations since at least 20% of Americans have tried pot, according to government health data. About half of states legalized recreational marijuana, but it's still illegal under federal law. The Justice Department argues the law is valid when used against regular drug users because they pose a serious public safety risk. The government said the FBI found Hemani's gun and cocaine in a search of his home as they probed travel and communications reportedly linked to Iran. The gun charge was the only one filed, however, and his lawyers said the other accusations were irrelevant and were mentioned only to make him seem more dangerous. The case marks another flashpoint in the application of the Supreme Court's new test for firearm restrictions. The conservative majority found in 2022 that the Second Amendment generally gives people the right to carry guns in public for self-defense and any firearm restrictions must have a strong grounding in the nation's history. The Supreme Court has issued a series of major rulings favoring gun rights but limited the sweep of the 2022 decision when it found last year that the government could take guns away from people subject to restraining orders for domestic violence. In March, the justices also upheld federal restrictions on so-called ghost guns, the nearly untraceable, homemade firearms that can be easily assembled. At issue in the new case is a section of federal law that bars any person who "is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance" from possessing a firearm. At least 32 states and territories have enacted similar laws restricting the possession of firearms by drug users and drug addicts. Hunter Biden was convicted in June 2024 on felony gun charges after a jury found he had lied about his drug use when he filled out a form to purchase a gun and then illegally owned the firearm as a drug user. The charges stemmed from Biden's purchase and possession of a handgun during a time when he later acknowledged he had been addicted to crack cocaine. Information for this article was contributed by Lindsay Whitehurst of The Associated Press and Ann E. Marimow of The New York Times.
