Legal experts anticipate SCOTUS will overturn drug user gun ban

Legal experts anticipate the U.S. Supreme Court will strike down a law barring unlawful drug users from possessing firearms.

On Monday, justices of the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in U.S. v. Hemani, a case challenging a law that prohibits a person who “is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance” from possessing a firearm.

Lawyers for Ali Hemani, a Texas man who was found possessing a gun, marijuana and cocaine, argued the law violated his Second Amendment rights. The Trump administration filed a petition to the Supreme Court to hear the case last year.

During the arguments, a majority of justices appeared skeptical of the law and the U.S. government’s petition to challenge it. The case came out of a standard developed from New York Rifle and Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, that required modern gun laws be consistent with the historical tradition of firearm regulation.

The U.S. government argued this tradition applied in U.S. v. Hemani, based on found...