U.S. Supreme Court justices seemed skeptical Monday that people who occasionally smoke marijuana at parties, or sometimes unwind with a weed gummy after a hard day's work, are the kinds of dangerous individuals who may be constitutionally prohibited from owning guns. The court heard roughly two hours of oral arguments in a case that could end criminal prosecutions of habitual marijuana users under Section 922g(3) of the federal Gun Control Act. The Second Amendment challenge from defendant and admitted weed user Ali Danial Hemani follows landmark Supreme Court rulings fundamentally reshaping gun rights in the U.S.. Using the test announced in the court's 2022 ruling in the Bruen case, Hemani's lawyer argued to the justices Monday that the federal ban on users of weed and other drugs from owning firearms has no support from the nation's founding era. An attorney for the federal government, Principal Deputy U.S. Solicitor General Sarah Harris, pointed to 18th century laws about "habitual drunkards" as historical support for the modern gun ban for drug users. She said those laws reflect the public safety concerns regarding certain individuals, and that current law should not be "trapped in amber." Hemani's attorney, Erin Murphy, countered those laws were aimed at "habitual drunkards—not to habitual drinkers," arguing that disarming occasional drug users is a step further than doing so for addicts who pose a danger to themselves and others. Several justices from both the conservative and liberal blocs of the court seemed to agree. Justice Neil Gorsuch said it would have taken a serious addiction to alcohol to be considered a "habitual drunkard" in the late 18th century, a time when "John Adams took a tankard of hard cider with breakfast" and Thomas Jefferson considered his consumption of alcohol temperate by virtue of only having three glasses of wine each night. Gorsuch contrasted those habits with someone today who has "one gummy bear every other night with a medical prescription" and would still be prohibited under federal law from owning guns. Justice Amy Coney Barrett raised similar concerns with the ban's scope. "What is the government's evidence that using marijuana a couple times a week makes someone dangerous?" she asked Harris. Trump Administration Fighting to Save Gun Ban The justices are reviewing a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit decision that the gun ban is unconstitutional when used to prosecute drug users who were not actually high at the time of their arrest for firearm possession. Here, that meant that prosecutors could not use Hemani's admission to being a marijuana user as the sole basis for prosecuting him under Section 922g(3). The dual U.S.-Pakistani citizen was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation over his alleged ties to the Iranian military. The U.S. government says that, during the execution of a search warrant at his home, FBI agents found a Glock 9mm, marijuana and cocaine, after which he admitted to using marijuana. Under the law, it is a crime for “any person who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance" to posses a firearm. The U.S. Justice Department is urging the Supreme Court to reverse that decision, saying it would decimate federal prosecutions under the law. Notably, Hunter Biden was also prosecuted and convicted under the law before being pardoned by former President Joe Biden, his father. Enacted with the 1968 Gun Control Act, the federal gun ban for drug users has long included the recreational or medical use of marijuana, which, despite being allowed in some form by the overwhelming majority of states, is still classified as a “controlled substance” under federal law. President Donald Trump has recently announced a possible reclassification of marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III but it is still criminalized at the federal level. Unlikely Alliances The Hemani case has scrambled traditional ideological alliances in major gun cases at the high court. Trump’s Justice Department, for instance, has aligned with gun control groups like Everytown for Gun Safety to uphold the law. The Republican administration has drawn some criticism from gun rights groups over its position in the case as it continues to tout its “ironclad commitment to protecting the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans.” Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties Union joined Hemani's legal team in arguing that his prosecution violates the Second Amendment. In 2022, the civil rights group had opposed the court's significant expansion of gun rights in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. Monday's hearing in the case was no exception. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, perhaps the court's most liberal member, seemed to agree with Hemani's argument that there is no founding analog to Section 922g(3)'s broad prohibition on firearm possession by habitual drug users. "I think your argument falls apart under the Bruen test," she told Harris. Jackson also expressed frustration that the federal government had taken inconsistent positions with respect to the Bruen test, noting its support of a Second Amendment challenge to a Hawaii gun restriction also before the court this term. "I don't understand how this works anymore in any meaningful way," she said. On the other hand, three members of the bench—Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and Justices Elena Kagan and Samuel Alito Jr.—seemed more inclined to uphold the gun ban. Roberts and Alito pushed back against arguments from Hemani's lawyer, Murphy, that the Second Amendment requires courts to make individualized determinations about a defendant's dangerousness in any criminal prosecution under Section 922g(3). Roberts suggested that would require district judges around the country to start calling expert witnesses and weighing the scientific evidence about particular drugs listed under the Controlled Substances Act. The chief justice said that would show a "fairly cavalier approach" to the expertise and judgment "we leave to Congress and the executive branch. Alito cited his past writings in Second Amendment cases in suggesting that 922g(3) is a valid backstop against concerns that expanding the constitutional right would imperil public safety. Indeed, Harris said striking down aspects of the drug ban "makes an absolute hash" of Section 922(g)3 and would require courts to start making individualized determinations about other gun prohibitions, which she called the "cornerstone" of gun violence prevention in the United States. Kagan, meanwhile, raised a hypothetical about a recreational user of the South American psychedelic hallucinogen ayahuasca. "It's definitely going to fail your test," Kagan told Murphy. Gorsuch, offering help to Murphy as she fielded questions from the bench, said the court would not need to "get into much of this" to resolve the case. The court could merely say that Hemani's admitted marijuana use does not render him akin to the "habitual drunkard" under 18th century law. "We are very happy to prevail on that narrow ground," replied Murphy, of Clement & Murphy. The court is expected to render its decision by July. The case is U.S. v. Hemani, No. 24-1234.