Verdicts & sentences

US Supreme Court: Marijuana Users Can't Be Banned From Gun Access

Is this ruling historically and constitutional sound or will it strip vital safeguards like background checks?

Published 1 day ago

US Supreme Court: Marijuana Users Can't Be Banned From Gun Access

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Above: Tourists across the street from the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on June 18. Image credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The Spin

Government-critical narrative

Every single justice understood that no Founding-era law ever stripped sober citizens of firearms just because they sometimes consumed intoxicants. The statute was also dangerously vague, leaving millions of Americans unable to know whether their conduct makes them a felon, which invites arbitrary enforcement. Treating a locked-away gun as a felony offense without any proof of reckless behavior or contemporaneous intoxication is exactly the kind of status-based punishment the Constitution forbids.

American Civil Liberties Union Reason.com

Pro-government narrative

Categorical firearm prohibitions have been a cornerstone of American law since the Founding, and gutting them would cripple the Brady background check system that blocks tens of thousands of dangerous gun purchases every year. Legislatures — not courts — are the proper bodies to weigh public safety tradeoffs, and history is full of examples where entire categories of people were disarmed based on potential future dangerousness, not just past acts.

GIFFORDS The Wall Street Journal

Metaculus Prediction

There's a 50% chance that by 2029, there will be at least 1.39 small firearms per capita in the U.S., according to the Metaculus prediction community.