What Was United States v. Hemani About? 

Before making its way to the Supreme Court, United States v. Hemani (2026) was set in motion in 2022, when Ali Hemani, an American-Pakistani dual citizen and Texan resident, saw his family’s residence searched based on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) suspicions of Hemani’s ties to Iran. At the time of the search, federal agents discovered a gun, marijuana, and cocaine, with Hemani later admitting to using marijuana “about every other day.” In response to Hemani’s confession about his marijuana use, the federal government charged Hemani with violating 18 U.S.C. § 922 (g)(3), a federal law part of the Gun Control Act (GCA) that bars an individual who is “an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance” from possessing a gun. 

The “controlled substance” in this case was marijuana, which notably saw two of its types reclassified from Schedule I drugs to Schedule III drugs by the U.S. Department of Justice this April. Such reclassification means that the federal government recognizes that certain types of marijuana have a lower rate of abuse and can serve a medical purpose compared to other Schedule I drugs, such as LSD and ecstasy. Even with this reclassification, however, disclosing one’s marijuana use remains part of the Firearms Transaction Record (Form 4473), or the form issued by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) that must be filled out to purchase a gun from a licensed U.S. gun dealer.

After being charged with violating 18 U.S.C. § 922 (g)(3), which can carry up to a 15-year prison sentence, Hemani sought to overturn the charge for being at odds with the Second Amendment, or the “right of the people to keep and bear Arms.” With help from both the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas and the U.S. Court of Appeals for Fifth Circuit, Hemani’s charge was dismissed twice before the federal government appealed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case in October of 2025. 

What Was the Supreme Court’s Decision in United States v. Hemani? 

On June 18, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled in a 9-0 decision that the charge brought against Hemani was unconstitutional and violated Hemani’s Second Amendment rights. 

Writing the majority opinion, Justice Neil Gorsuch took issue with the federal government’s attempt to justify that its prosecution of Hemani was “consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation,” particularly historic habitual drunkard laws. Habitual drunkard laws typically punished individuals who exhibited a “pattern of excessive alcohol consumption impairing one’s ability to manage personal affairs.” The federal government alleged that 18 U.S.C. § 922 (g)(3) functions similarly to these laws, which were often used during the Founder’s era. However, Justice Gorsuch poked holes in this defense, citing key attributes of early habitual drunkard laws that differentiated them from 18 U.S.C. § 922 (g)(3): 

• Habitual drunkard laws required evidence that the alcohol had an “incapacitating effect” on an individual.
• Habitual drunkard laws were intended “to protect habitual drunkards from themselves and their families from financial devastation.”
• Punishment under habitual drunkard laws were preceded by some sort of court proceeding or “pre-deprivation process.”

Given these key attributes, Justice Gorsuch found that the federal government had disregarded whether Hemani’s marijuana use had “the kind of incapacitating effect on them that historical habitual drunkard laws normally required.” According to Justice Gorsuch, this disregard, in effect, unconstitutionally gave the federal government the sweeping power to prosecute anyone under 18 U.S.C. § 922 (g)(3), including “a husband who regularly takes his wife’s prescription Ambien to sleep and a college student who…uses…Adderall…for exams.” 

Justice Gorsuch also emphasized that habitual drunkard laws neither protected the public from dangerous individuals nor were executed without court proceedings, which contrasts from the ability of 18 U.S.C. § 922 (g)(3) to instantly deprive “an individual of his constitutional right to bear arms the moment he becomes an unlawful user and until he ends his drug use” without a court hearing. This, alongside the federal government’s own role in reclassifying marijuana, led Justice Gorsuch to conclude that the Court simply could not allow the federal government to determine that “anyone who regularly uses marijuana is categorically violent and dangerous” and therefore bar someone like Hemani from owning a gun under 18 U.S.C. § 922 (g)(3). 

The Court upheld the dismissal of Hemani’s charge and Justice Clarence Thomas, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, and Justice Samuel Alito all wrote concurrent opinions. 

Who Supported the Supreme Court’s Decision? 

Support for the Court’s decision in United States v. Hemani poured in from various organization leaders, including Executive Director John Commerford of the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA). Commerford applauded the Court for stopping “the government’s attempt to disarm millions of responsible citizens…based solely on their status as occasional marijuana users.” 

Kris Brown, director of the non-profit Brady: United Against Gun Violence, supported the exclusivity of the Court’s decision, arguing that the Court’s decision still upheld the ability of legislatures to restrict firearms access for certain people, just not Hemani. The American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) legal director Cecillia Wang agreed with the Court’s decision too, stating that the ruling “protects the rights of millions and curbs the government’s ability to impose arbitrary and discriminatory penalties.”

Who Opposed the Supreme Court’s Decision? 

Critics of the Court’s decision included the U.S. Solicitor General D. John Saur, who previously argued that 18 U.S.C. § 922 (g)(3) represented “narrow circumstances in which the government may justifiably” take away an individual’s rights under the Second Amendment. Kevin Sabet, CEO of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, a bipartisan alliance committed to “a health-first approach to marijuana policy,” also disagreed with the Court’s decision, warning that the Court focused too closely on Second Amendment rights and made public health and safety “the collateral damage in this decision.” 

Janet Carter, Everytown Law’s managing director of the group’s Second Amendment practice, spoke out against the ruling as well, though Carter appreciated that the ruling was limited to Hemani and still allowed the government to prosecute individuals—with evidence—that their drug use makes possessing a gun dangerous. 

What Changes Could This Decision Bring? 

Following the United States v. Hemani decision, speculation among legal experts on what could come next has quickly taken shape. Some believe that the decision could lead the ATF to make changes to Form 4473, particularly its marijuana-related questions. Other policy analysts insist that because the decision is narrow, enforcement of 18 U.S.C. § 922 (g)(3) remains valid and “anyone using a federally controlled substance outside of prescribed medical use still assumes real legal risk if they own firearms.” 

Outside of this speculation, judicial commentators like Joel Johnson foresee the Hermani decision affecting how lower courts proceed with related cases, particularly when it comes to considering historical analogies like the habitual drunkard laws the federal government used in the case. 

In addition, because the Court never settled what “unlawful user” means under 18 U.S.C. § 922 (g)(3), or “whether the government may prosecute someone presently intoxicated while armed…,” some, like Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson in her concurrent opinion, expect an increase in mixed decisions from the lower courts. Such decisions could add a layer of inconsistency to how the government recognizes gun possession and marijuana use, posing the question of whether Congress will soon be swayed to add more particular language to laws like 18 U.S.C. § 922 (g)(3).