Gun Rights Groups Urge Supreme Court To Combine Cases On Marijuana Consumers’ Second Amendment Rights To Reach Fairer Ruling
Federal ban on gun ownership by marijuana users is finally headed for a clean taste test at the Supreme Court. A coalition of gun-rights groups is asking the justices to consider two cases together—U.S. v. Hemani, which the Court already agreed to hear, and U.S. v. Harris—so the constitutional fight over 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3) isn’t judged by an outlier plate. This is the crossroads where cannabis policy, gun law, and the American appetite for liberty meet under harsh fluorescent lights. The Department of Justice, busy juggling other deadlines, asked for extra time to brief Harris. The result? An already simmering dispute over whether responsible cannabis consumers can be stripped of their Second Amendment rights is now on a rolling boil, the heat turned up by a nation that can’t even sort out its hemp squabbles without threatening the lights going out—see the congressional brinkmanship in Hemp dispute threatens bill to end federal shutdown (Newsletter: October 30, 2025).
Why two cases, not one
The gun-rights amici say Hemani is the wrong vehicle to define the rule for everyone who uses cannabis. It’s not just about marijuana; Hemani involves multiple illicit substances and a stew of extraordinary facts, including allegations unrelated to how your neighbor in a legal state uses medical cannabis to sleep through the pain. Harris, they argue, is the more representative dinner guest: an otherwise law-abiding person whose gun rights evaporate not when intoxicated, but for simply being a “regular user” under federal law. The Second Amendment Foundation made the ask in an amicus brief, urging the Court to pair the cases and taste the whole menu before writing the recipe for the nation. Their press release lays out the stakes in plain English: millions of state-legal consumers put on the wrong side of a federal line they didn’t draw. Read the statement here: SAF amicus announcement.
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
History, intoxication, and the six-pack in your fridge
This fight turns on whether there’s a historical analogue for disarming people who sometimes use a socially accepted substance. DOJ leans on old rules about armed drunks to justify the modern cannabis prohibition. The amici flips the mirror: yes, we’ve long barred the intoxicated from carrying guns—but we didn’t ban sober citizens from ownership because they might drink later. Today’s cannabis reform landscape looks a lot more like that alcohol model. If the founding-era practice was to keep weapons away from the actively impaired, then 922(g)(3) goes further—more like banning anyone with a six-pack in the fridge rather than the person with a beer in hand. Meanwhile, the culture war fog machine keeps churning. Fear-forward narratives about tainted street weed still grab headlines—see DEA promotes ad warning of cannabis laced with fentanyl (Newsletter: October 31, 2025)—even as Washington debates moving marijuana to Schedule III, a rescheduling proposal now under consideration in a process initiated during the last administration and still grinding through the federal gears.
The circuit split and state skirmishes
Out in the courts, the scorecard is messy. A federal appeals court recently sided with a district judge who tossed an indictment because the government couldn’t square 922(g)(3) with the Second Amendment under the modern historical test. Another circuit vacated a conviction and told the trial court to actually test whether cannabis use made the defendant dangerous. A different circuit, in a published opinion, said judges must make individualized judgments rather than rubber-stamp the ban. Meanwhile, a separate appeals court gave medical marijuana patients a foot in the door on their gun rights. Down on the ground, the ATF warned Kentuckians that joining the imminent medical program could cost them firearms, while lawmakers in states like Pennsylvania explored bills to remove state-level barriers—and a Colorado ballot push to protect cannabis users’ carry rights fell short. In the Supreme Court’s in-box, Hemani is docketed, briefing schedules are nudged because of the “press of other cases,” and Harris waits in the wings; you can follow the dockets here: Hemani docket and Harris docket. All of it unfolds while Congress argues over hemp and spending deadlines like a family fighting at closing time—see these snapshots of the policy crossfire: Hemp dispute threatens bill to end federal shutdown (Newsletter: October 30, 2025) and Hemp dispute threatens bill to end federal shutdown (Newsletter: October 30, 2025).
What happens next—and who’s on the hook
If the Supreme Court blesses 922(g)(3), expect the government to pocket wins in the many pending cases and for federal prosecutors to keep treating cannabis consumers like a monolith, dangerous by category rather than by conduct. If the Court rejects that logic—or narrows it—millions of Americans in legal states won’t have to choose between a state-sanctioned medicine and a constitutional right. Either way, the opinion will shape how courts treat intoxication, responsibility, and risk in an era when cannabis is threaded through mainstream life from pharmacies to county fairs. The smart money says the justices will care about facts on the ground: legalization’s spread, the growing medical patient base, and a federal government that talks about rescheduling while defending a prohibition designed for another time. Keep an eye on the briefing in Harris and the arguments in Hemani, and, if you want a broader sense of how weed policy bleeds into everything from budgets to rights, revisit Hemp dispute threatens bill to end federal shutdown (Newsletter: October 30, 2025); and if you’re charting your own path through this shifting legal terrain, take a quiet detour to our shop and see what’s fresh: https://thcaorder.com/shop/.
