United States v. Hemani

Federal Ban on Firearm Possession by Unlawful Users of Controlled Substances Held Unconstitutional as Applied to the Defendant

Overview

In June 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment was violated by prosecution of the defendant, a marijuana user, under 18 U.S. Code § 922(g)(3). This federal law prohibits unlawful users of any controlled substance from possessing, using, receiving, exporting, or selling a firearm. Prosecution required no showing that a gun owner “is regularly incapacitated, incapable of conducting his affairs, or a threat to himself or others.” The defendant was prosecuted for possessing a gun while being an unlawful marijuana user, after he admitted to smoking multiple times per week. The Court followed the test established in District of Columbia v. Heller, requiring the government to show that a federal law regulating firearms is “consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of regulation.” The Supreme Court held this showing was not made; thus, applied to this defendant, 922(g)(3) was unconstitutional.

Background Leading Up to the Case

Suspecting Ali Hemani and his family “of terrorism-related activities,” the FBI searched their Texas home in 2022. Cooperative during the search, Mr. Hemani relinquished his gun and indicated the location of marijuana on his property. Consenting to an interview, he admitted using marijuana multiple times per week. Prosecution of Mr. Hemani was based “solely on his admitted use of marijuana about every other day,” making him an unlawful user of a controlled substance in knowing possession of a gun.

The Federal Provision at Issue: Prohibition on Unlawful Users of Controlled Substances

U.S. Code § 922(g) prohibits categories of people from gun possession, including those convicted of domestic violence or crimes punishable by over 1 year of imprisonment, and “fugitives from justice.” Subsection (3) “automatically disarms anyone who regularly uses any amount of any controlled substance for anything other than its prescribed purpose.” It didn’t matter which controlled substances (or in what amounts) are used, whether such use is deemed to pose a danger, nor why (or how safely) a gun is possessed.

Court’s Analysis: Initial Questions

To evaluate whether a law infringes upon the Second Amendment, the Court follows a test laid out in District of Columbia v. Heller, asking:

• (1) Is the incriminating conduct covered by the Second Amendment’s terms?
• (2) If so, the conduct is presumptively protected by the Constitution.

The government agreed that “§ 922(g)(3)’s unlawful user provision burdens conduct presumptively protected by the Second Amendment.”

The Government’s Burden to Overcome the Presumption of Protection

To overcome this presumption of unconstitutionality, the government has the burden to show the law is “consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” This “involves considering whether the challenged regulation is consistent with the principles that underpin regulatory tradition.” This may be proven through reasoning by analogy, by showing the challenged law mirrors (is relevantly similar) to others well-established in U.S. history. A law may be “relevantly similar” to historical ones based on its:

• (1) Why (purpose) and
• (2) How (operation)

The government argued that 922(g)(3) was similar to historical laws regulating “habitual drunkards” including vagrancy laws allowing their confinement, civil-commitment statutes allowing courts to appoint guardians or authorize their commitment, and surety laws allowing judicial officers to compel them to post surety bonds to ensure their good behavior. A habitual drunkard was defined as someone who “for any considerable part of his time [was] intoxicated to such a degree as to deprive him of his ordinary reasoning faculties.” 

Unlike traditional laws, 922(g)(3) did not require a showing that an individual is “regularly incapacitated, much less incapable of conducting his affairs or a threat to himself or others.” The historical laws generally “provided some form of [judicial] process before an individual lost any of his liberties, even temporarily.” In contrast, 922(g)(3) “automatically divests an individual of his constitutional right to bear arms the moment he becomes an unlawful user and until he ends his drug use, all without any pre-deprivation process.” The Court concluded: “The historical laws on which [the government’s analogy] relies targeted different kinds of people, did so for different reasons, and operated in different ways.” Thus, 922(g)(3) was unconstitutional as applied to the defendant in Hemani.

Court’s Clarification on the Narrowness of its Decision

The Court clarified that its decision does not prevent banning those addicted or currently intoxicated from possessing firearms. Nor banned is legislation based on specific conclusions that users of certain drugs pose a particular risk of misusing guns. Distinguished from subsection (3), “other provisions of § 922, such as subsections (g)(1) (disarming convicted felons) and (g)(4) (disarming any person ‘adjudicated as a mental defective’ or ‘committed to a mental institution’), involve some manner of pre-deprivation [judicial] process”, and are not affected by the ruling.

While the Second (Not Fourth) Amendment was at Issue in Hemani, the Evolving Nature of Constitutional Interpretation Remains Pervasive

The Hemani Court explained: “Forty states, three territories and the District of Columbia have legalized some marijuana use . . . 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.” This statement reflects the constantly-evolving nature of both societal expectations and cultural norms, key themes surrounding constitutional interpretation.

The Hemani Court stated that the Second Amendment “can, and must, apply to circumstances beyond those the Founders specifically anticipated.” While not addressed in Hemani, the same could be said about the Fourth Amendment, prohibiting (but not defining) unreasonable searches and seizures. Today’s cutting-edge technology and pharmaceutical medications, often surrounding core issues in landmark court cases, were unfathomable when the Constitution was drafted. As modern digital devices redefine expectations of privacy, courts continue clarifying search and seizure limitations, through the lens of the Founders, as applied to effects incomprehensible just a few decades ago.

References

1. “The Second Amendment protects the right of ‘all Americans’ to keep and bear firearms for self-defense.” Yet, “like most individual rights, the Second Amendment has its limits.” District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 571, 581, 626 (2008) (holding that the 2nd “Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home . . . The [D.C.] handgun ban and the trigger-lock requirement (as applied to self-defense)” violated the 2nd Amendment.”).
2. 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3).
3. “The law . . . does not require . . . show[ing] that a particular individual is regularly incapacitated, much less incapable of conducting his affairs or a threat to himself or others.” United States v. Hemani, 608 U.S. ____, slip op. at 19 (2026).
4. “Under Heller, when the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct, and to justify a firearm regulation, the government must demonstrate that [it] is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1, 2 (2022).
5. “The problem in this case is simply that the historical evidence the government presents does not support the categorical restriction [contained in § 933(g)(3)].” United States v. Hemani, 608 U.S. ____, slip op. at 16 n.6 (2026).
6. “Ali Hemani is a dual citizen of the United States and Pakistan who was born in Texas. He has spent most of his life living in the Dallas area with his parents and working a stable job.” Hemani, at 1.
7. “This case poses the question whether the government’s prosecution of Mr. Hemani is consistent with the Second Amendment.” Hemani, at 1.
8. “The federal Gun Control Act prohibits various categories of people from possessing guns . . . listed in 18 U.S.C. § 922(g),” including those convicted of domestic violence or crimes punishable by over 1 year of imprisonment, and “fugitives from justice.” Hemani, at 1.
9. “[T]he statute automatically divests an individual of his constitutional right to bear arms the moment he becomes an unlawful user and until he ends his drug use, all without any pre-deprivation [judicial] process.” Hemani, at 3, 15.
10. “To determine when the government infringes the Second Amendment, we begin by asking whether the Amendment’s terms cover the conduct in question.” New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1, 24 (2022).
11. “The government accepts this framework and agrees that §922(g)(3)’s unlawful user provision burdens conduct presumptively protected by the Second Amendment because the statute bans a class of people, including Mr. Hemani, from possessing essentially any firearm for any purpose.” Hemani, at 2.
12. This “analysis involves considering whether the challenged regulation is consistent with the principles that underpin our regulatory tradition.” United States v. Rahimi, 602 U.S. 680, 692 (2024).
13. “Even when a law regulates arms-bearing for a permissible reason, . . . it may not be compatible with the [Second Amendment] if it does so to an extent beyond what was done at the founding.” Rahimi, 602 U.S., at 692.
14. “[T]he appropriate analysis involves considering whether the challenged regulation is consistent with the principles that underpin our regulatory tradition.” Hemani, at 4.
15. “The more closely a contemporary law mirrors a well-established historical analogue in purpose and operation, the more likely it is to be upheld. Conversely, the more a modern law diverges from traditional laws in purpose and operation, the less likely it is to survive [judicial] review.” Bruen, 597 U.S., at 29; Rahimi, 602 U.S., at 692.
16. “Generally, a habitual drunkard could be assigned a guardian or committed to an asylum only after [judicial] proceedings.” Hemani, at 15.
17. “[T]ypically, surety statutes required a proceeding . . . before a bond could be ordered or . . . before a jail sentence could be imposed.” See Rahimi, 602 U.S., at 699.
18. In re Tracy, 1 Paige Ch. 580, 582–83 (N.Y. Ch.). “Congress defined a habitual drunkard as ‘any person who, by the use of intoxicating liquors . . . has lost self-control, or become incapable of . . . care and management of his affairs, or habitually . . . neglectful thereof, or dangerous to himself or others.'” Act of Mar. 30, 1876, §9, 19 Stat. 10–11.
19. “§ 922(g)(3) sweeps in large numbers of people without regard to whether their substance use has the kind of incapacitating effect on them that historical habitual drunkard laws normally required.” Hemani, at 10.
20. “The government’s prosecution of Mr. Hemani under § 922(g)(3)’s unlawful user provision is inconsistent with the Second Amendment.” Hemani, at 1.
21. “[T]he government’s analogy [arguing the similarity of traditional laws to the modern one challenged as unconstitutional] fails under every measure.” Hemani, at 19.
22. “In many respects, this case is a narrow one. We do not address efforts to ban addicts . . . [n]or those presently intoxicated, from possessing a firearm.” Hemani, at 18.
23. “[O]ur conclusion today should not be taken to suggest ‘that the Second Amendment prohibits the enactment of laws banning the possession of guns by categories of persons thought by a legislature to present a special danger of misuse.” Hemani, at 15-16 n.5-6.
24. § 933(g)(3) “extends equally to a husband who regularly takes his wife’s prescription Ambien to sleep and a college student who routinely uses a friend’s Adderall to cram for exams . . . the government asks us to analogize all such persons to habitual drunkards.” Hemani, at 11.
25. “Dramatic technological change may lead to periods in which popular expectations are in flux and may ultimately produce significant changes in popular attitudes.” United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400, 692 (2012) (holding that “installation of a GPS device on a target’s vehicle, and its use of that device to monitor the vehicle’s movements, constitutes a ‘search.'”).
26. “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.” U.S. Const. amend. IV. “The fact that technology now allows an individual to carry such information in his hand does not make the information any less worthy of the protection for which the Founders fought.” Riley v. California, 134 S. Ct. 2473, 2494–95 (2014) (holding that a warrant is required for cell phone search).
27. Cell “phones are based on technology nearly inconceivable just a few decades ago, when Chimel and Robinson [regarding search incident to arrest] were decided.” Riley v. California, 134 S. Ct. 2473, 2488–89 (2014). Although non-existent when the Constitution was drafted, cell phones (or the information they contain) now receive substantial protection under this “living” document.

Related from Blue to Gold

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• Colorado Courts on Cannabis, K-9s, and Car Searches
• Can You Run a Gun’s Serial Number During a Traffic Stop?

This article is legal training, not legal advice. Check your state law and your agency policy, because both can be more restrictive than the Fourth Amendment.