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Posted on 03/03/2026 7:58:38 AM PST by Twotone
America’s founding fathers probably drank too much alcohol to keep their guns under modern standards, Justice Neil Gorsuch suggested Monday.
Several Supreme Court justices appeared skeptical Monday of the Trump administration’s defense of a statute that prohibits “unlawful users” or addicts of any controlled substance, including marijana, from owning firearms.
Principal Deputy Solicitor General Sarah Harris pointed to founding-era restrictions on the rights of habitual drunkards as historical justification for disarming marijana users, but Gorsuch highlighted a key difference in how the government now defines “habitual.”
“The American Temperance Society, back in the day, said 8 shots of whiskey a day only made you an occasional drunkard…To be a habitual drunkard, you had to do double that,” Gorsuch said during oral arguments for United States v. Hemani.
“John Adams took a tankard of hard cider with his breakfast everyday,” he sad. “James Madison reportedly drank a pint of whiskey every day. Thomas Jefferson said he wasn’t much of a user of alcohol, he only drank 3-4 glasses of wine a night. Are they all habitual drunkards who would be properly disarmed for life?”
While the government contends defendant Ali Danial Hemani is a drug dealer with suspected ties to Iranian terrorists, he is only being charged for owning a handgun while admitting to consuming marijuana “a few times a week.” The case stems from his challenge to that indictment under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3).
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals previously tossed Hemani’s indictment.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson indicated the government’s position falls apart under their 2022 holding in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen, where the majority held firearm restrictions must be “consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
“The modern legislature, under our Bruen test, only gets to do the policy judgments of the historical ones,” she said. “We have to see that the historical legislature, going back to Justice Gorsuch’s point, was making a determination that someone who only drinks or takes an intoxicant once every other day and is not doing so while he’s using a firearm can be disarmed. If we don’t see that, the fact that today’s Congress thinks that person is dangerous is irrelevant.”
Justice Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts appeared more sympathetic to the government’s position.
“The most commonly used illegal drugs either had not been invented at the time of adoption of the Second Amendment or the adoption of the 14th Amendment,” Alito said. “Heroin was invented in 1874, cocaine 1855, methamphetamine 1893, fentanyl 1959, marijana existed, but my understanding, hemp was grown for industrial purposes, my understanding is it was not consumed to any degree by people in the United States until at least the beginning of 20th century.”
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FTA
Justice Alito and Chief Justice Roberts appeared more sympathetic to the govt’s position: “The most commonly used illegal drugs either had not been invented at the time of adoption of the Second Amendment or the adoption of the 14th Amendment.”
<><>“Heroin was invented in 1874, cocaine 1855,
<><>methamphetamine 1893, fentanyl 1959,
<><>hemp was grown for industrial purposes,
<><>Apparently not consumed to any degree til the beginning of the 20th century.”
That’s where the saying, “watch your p’s and q’s” comes from: “watch your pints and quarts”
There’s a significant possibility that Mr. Pothead might pick up an addictive drug habit and might pay for it handing over a gun to a dealer who might pass it on to a dealer supplier.
“McNair!....”
I think the Cannabis/Hashish part of the world for the last 2000 years would look more like the Western world if they would have stayed away from it and had taverns and drinks instead.
How about that.
The Founding Fathers would have had guns that only fired one shot at a time, if the powder left in the gun didn’t get ruined by the humidity of the Northeastern seaboard or American South.
the second amendment means we don’t play.
If the use of drugs is legal...and booze is legal...how can you say that druggies and boozers should not own guns?
I learned something today!
I said in the other post, this is his way to say smoking pot should have no gun restrictions. This pothead wants to lump drinkers in with his stupid habit. Like suing colleges for affirmative action using Asians instead of whites.
Are you saying Gorsuch smokes pot? If so, how do you know?
Mr. Junkie, I’m very upset you used a gun to commit a crime.
Your honor, I was hooked. I needed the stuff.
What was the first illegal drug you used?
Pot.
You sound like a man who drinks his whiskey every night while complaining about potheads.
The Founders were known to drink. ...... September 1787: That Time Our Founding Fathers Ran Up An Epic Bar Tab. The date was September 15, 1787 and the place was City Tavern in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A little over 50 guests attended this soiree, including friends, troops, musicians and of course Washington himself. Between them, they put away enough booze to put any college frat party to shame. Here is the list:
7 large bowls of spiked punch
8 bottles of hard cider
8 bottles of Old Stock (a form of Colonial-era whiskey)
12 bottles of beer
22 bottles of porter
54 bottles of Madeira
60 bottles of Claret
The estimated cost of the bar tab? In today’s dollars, around $16,000. https://theclassicdad.com/2017/06/the-shockingly-high-bar-tab-that-came-before-the-independence/
“<><>“Heroin was invented in 1874, cocaine 1855,
<><>hemp was grown for industrial purposes, Apparently not consumed to any degree til the beginning of the 20th century.””
“the Milk of the Poppy” has been used for hundreds/ Thousands of years in various forms. And likely at least a few that were in use/ circulation in US in the 1700s.
George Washington himself had a pot farm. from the little I understand about it. You don’t talk specifically about sexing these plants if you’re just making rope.
And if somebody believes that smoking Pot in various forms is a 20th C thing. That is just nuts. Just ask the hashemites..
Too late, try dealing with the present reality.
I drink vodka in the mornings so i can shave without cutting myself
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