Gun Rights Groups Urge Supreme Court To Combine Cases On Marijuana Consumers’ Second Amendment Rights To Reach Fairer Ruling

A coalition of gun rights organizations is urging the U.S. Supreme Court to
expand its examination of the constitutionality of a federal ban on firearm
ownership by people who use marijuana—telling justices that a recent case
on the issue it accepted would not properly settle the question of the
current law’s constitutionality.

After the Supreme Court granted cert in the case *U.S. v. Hemani *earlier
this month—which the Trump administration had pushed for—the Second
Amendment Foundation (SAF) and five other gun rights advocacy groups filed
an amici brief on Wednesday in a separate case pending before the justices.

Also, on Thursday, the Justice Department requested more time to file its
own initial brief in that case, *U.S. v. Harris*, which hasn’t yet been
granted cert by court. The government said a deadline extension from
October 30 to December 1 was necessary “to complete preparation of the
government’s response, which was delayed because of the heavy press of
earlier assigned cases to the attorneys handling this matter.”

What the gun rights groups asked in their brief in the *Harris* case is
that the Supreme Court jointly consider *Hemani *and *Harris *together to
get a more comprehensive look at the constitutional challenge to the
firearms ban known as 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3).

One of the main contentions with singularly focusing on *Hemani, *the brief
says, is the fact that the case is “not limited to marijuana.”

“It also involves illicit drugs that do not share marijuana’s social
acceptance and increasing legalization, nor its relative safety and
medicinal use,” it says. “It also involves a criminal defendant with highly
unusual facts, complete with alleged drug dealing and claimed ties to the
Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.”

The Second Amendment Foundation has filed a Supreme Court amicus brief in
Harris v. United States, a case concerning a Petitioner who is charged with
owning a firearm while being a regular user of marijuana. Our brief urges
the Court to consider the case alongside United States…
pic.twitter.com/3gd4B4R3Mt

— SAF (@2AFDN) October 29, 2025

SAF Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb said in a press release that
the *Harris* case is “critical because it affects millions of law-abiding
Americans who face losing their Second Amendment rights simply for using a
substance legal in their state—often for medical reasons.”

In addition to SAF, the brief was also joined by the California Rifle &
Pistol Association, Second Amendment Law Center, Operation Blazing
Sword-Pink Pistols, Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus and Minnesota Gun Owners
Law Center.

“It would be unjust for this Court to decide an issue affecting millions of
Americans based on the unique and highly unusual facts present in Mr.
Hemani’s case alone,” the groups said.

“The Petitioner here is far more representative of how this issue affects
most otherwise law-abiding people who use marijuana (often in compliance
with their state’s laws). The two cases should thus be considered together
to help ensure this Court reaches the right result on this important
question.”

Amid numerous legal challenges to § 922(g)(3) as it applies to cannabis
consumers, the Justice Department has consistently defended the
prohibition, likening marijuana users to mentally ill people and those who
are habitually intoxicated, for example. Some suspect the federal
government’s push for justices to take up *Hemani *over other cases is
because of the multiple drugs involved that could play in its favor.

The new brief also addresses a core question of whether the gun ban for
marijuana users is historically analogous to the country’s founding era,
with DOJ making the case that because some laws prohibited people from
possessing guns while drunk from alcohol, that’s a sufficient standard to
justify the marijuana and firearms ban.

“Historically, the best example of this is alcohol, as its widespread
consumption predates the founding. And sure enough, because of the dangers
of mixing alcohol and firearms, plenty of laws arose to prevent inebriated
people from being armed,” the groups said. “But what never existed were
laws that prohibited people from owning guns because they sometimes drank.
In the modern era, marijuana should be treated no differently.”

The current statute “is not akin to banning drunkards from carrying guns,
it is akin to banning anyone who has a six-pack of Budweiser in their
refrigerator from owning guns,” they said.

The brief also notes the “dramatic” shift in public opinion and laws around
cannabis, pointing out that President Donald Trump is actively considering
a proposal to move marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III of the
Controlled Substances Act (CSA) under a process initiated under the Biden
administration.

“Yet because of the prohibition found in 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3), if
Americans choose to use marijuana or other cannabis products (that often
are legal in their state), they must surrender their Second Amendment right
before they do so—and not only when they are intoxicated,” it says. “They
may not even own firearms if they regularly consume cannabis products. This
does not square with the lengthy historical tradition of how alcohol and
firearms have been regulated.”

“In sum, especially when it comes to social acceptance, marijuana is not at
all like the promethazine and cocaine involved in another petition that was
recently granted certiorari,” the brief concludes.

“Intoxication is inconsistent with responsible firearm use, but our
historical tradition has long allowed occasional users of socially
acceptable substances like alcohol and marijuana to own and use firearms,
so long as they do so while they are not presently intoxicated. For the
reasons discussed above and in Petitioner’s brief, this Court’s
intervention would be welcome in this case to resolve the circuit split
that has developed on this issue. It should grant certiorari in this matter
and hear it alongside *Hemani*.”

Meanwhile, in a motion from the Trump administration that was sent to the
court last week, DOJ said there was mutual agreement between its attorneys
and those representing the respondent in *Hemani* that the current deadline
for briefs and reply briefs should be revised because of the “press of
other cases.”

Currently, the Justice Department is supposed to file its first brief with
the court by December 4, but it’s requesting that be extended to December
12. That would push the respondent’s deadline to submit a brief to January
20.

In a separate August filing for the case, the Justice Department also
emphasized that “the question presented is the subject of a multi-sided and
growing circuit conflict.” In seeking the court’s grant of cert, the
solicitor general also noted that the defendant is a joint American and
Pakistani citizen with alleged ties to Iranian entities hostile to the
U.S., putting him the FBI’s radar.

Now that the Supreme Court has agreed to take up *Hemani*, if justices
declare 922(g)(3) constitutional, such a ruling could could mean government
wins in the remaining cases. The high court last week denied a petition for
cert in *U.S. v. Cooper*, while leaving pending decisions on *U.S. v.
Daniels* and *U.S. v. Sam*.

The court also recently denied a petition for cert in another gun and
marijuana case, *U.S. v. Baxter, *but that wasn’t especially surprising as
both DOJ and the defendants advised against further pursing the matter
after a lower court reinstated his conviction for being an unlawful user of
a controlled substance in possession of a firearm.

Meanwhile, in recent interviews with Marijuana Moment, several Republican
senators shared their views on the federal ban on gun possession by people
who use marijuana—with one saying that if alcohol drinkers can lawfully buy
and use firearms, the same standard should apply to cannabis consumers.

Separately, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit last month sided
with a federal district court that dismissed an indictment against Jared
Michael Harrison, who was charged in Oklahoma in 2022 after police
discovered cannabis and a handgun in his vehicle during a traffic stop.

The case has now been remanded to that lower court, which determined that
the current statute banning “unlawful” users of marijuana from possessing
firearms violates the Second Amendment of the Constitution.

The lower court largely based his initial decision on an interpretation of
a Supreme Court ruling in which the justices generally created a higher
standard for policies that seek to impose restrictions on gun rights.

Separately, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh District, judges
recently ruled in favor of medical cannabis patients who want to exercise
their Second Amendment rights to possess firearms.

As a recent report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS) explained
the current legal landscape, a growing number of federal courts are now
“finding constitutional problems in the application of at least some parts”
of the firearms prohibition.

In a recent ruling, a three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the Eighth Circuit vacated a defendant’s conviction and remanded the case
back to a district court, noting that a retrial before a jury may be
necessary to determine whether cannabis in fact caused the defendant to be
dangerous or pose a credible threat to others.

The Third Circuit separately said in a published opinion that district
courts must make “individualized judgments” to determine whether 922(g)(3)
is constitutional as applied to particular defendants.

A federal court last week agreed to delay proceedings in a years-long
Florida-based case challenging the constitutionality of the ban on gun
ownership by people who use medical marijuana, with the Justice Department
arguing that the Supreme Court’s recent decision to take up *Hemani*
warrants a stay in the lower court.


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Earlier this year, a federal judge in Rhode Island ruled that the ban was
unconstitutional as applied to two defendants, writing that the government
failed to establish that the “sweeping” prohibition against gun ownership
by marijuana users was grounded in historical precedent.

A federal judge in El Paso separately ruled late last year that the
government’s ongoing ban on gun ownership by habitual marijuana users is
unconstitutional in the case of a defendant who earlier pleaded guilty to
the criminal charge. The court allowed the man to withdraw the plea and
ordered that the indictment against him be dismissed.

DOJ has claimed in multiple federal cases over the past several years that the
statute banning cannabis consumers from owning or possessing guns is
constitutional because it’s consistent with the nation’s history of
disarming “dangerous” individuals.

In 2023, for example, the Justice Department told the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the Third Circuit that historical precedent “comfortably” supports the
restriction. Cannabis consumers with guns pose a unique danger to society,
the Biden administration claimed, in part because they’re “unlikely” to
store their weapon properly.

Meanwhile, some states have passed their own laws either further
restricting or attempting to preserve gun rights as they relate to
marijuana.

Recently a Pennsylvania lawmaker introduced a bill meant to remove state
barriers to medical marijuana patients carrying firearms.

Colorado activists also attempted to qualify an initiative for November’s
ballot that would have protected the Second Amendment rights of marijuana
consumers in that state, but the campaign’s signature-gathering drive
ultimately fell short.

As 2024 drew to a close, the ATF issued a warning to Kentucky residents that,
if they choose to participate in the state’s medical marijuana program
that’s set to launch imminently, they will be prohibited from buying or
possessing firearms under federal law.

The official said that while people who already own firearms aren’t
“expected to” turn them over if they become state-legal cannabis patients,
those who “wish to follow federal law and not be in violation of it” must
“make the decision to divest themselves of those firearms.”

Since then, bipartisan state lawmakers have introduced legislation that
would urge Kentucky’s representatives in Congress to amend federal law to
clarify that users of medical marijuana may legally possess firearms,
though no action has since been taken on that bill.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) said in January that he supported the
legislature’s effort to urge the state’s congressional delegation to call
for federal reforms to protect the Second Amendment rights of medical
marijuana patients, but the governor added that he’d like to see even more
sweeping change on the federal level.

The post Gun Rights Groups Urge Supreme Court To Combine Cases On Marijuana
Consumers’ Second Amendment Rights To Reach Fairer Ruling appeared first on Marijuana
Moment.