NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.
The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.
See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Syllabus

UNITED STATES v. HEMANI

certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the fifth circuit

No. 24–1234. Argued March 2, 2026—Decided June 18, 2026

Ali Hemani is a dual citizen of the United States and Pakistan who was born in Texas. He has spent most of his life living in the Dallas area with his parents and working a stable job. Suspecting Mr. Hemani and his family members of terrorism-related activities, the government conducted a search of the family home in 2022. Throughout the process, Mr. Hemani proved cooperative: he surrendered a gun he kept in the house, pointed agents to some marijuana on the property, and consented to an interview during which he told law enforcement agents that he used marijuana about every other day. More than six months after the search, and relying solely on Mr. Hemani’s admitted use of marijuana, the government prosecuted Mr. Hemani under 18 U. S. C. §922(g)(3) for knowingly possessing a gun in his home while being an unlawful user of a controlled substance. Mr. Hemani moved to dismiss the indictment, arguing that the government’s effort to enforce §922(g)(3) against him violated the Second Amendment. The district court granted the motion, and after an unsuccessful appeal to the Fifth Circuit, the government asked this Court to review the case.

Held: The government’s prosecution of Mr. Hemani under §922(g)(3)’s unlawful user provision is inconsistent with the Second Amendment. Pp. 3–19.

(a) The Second Amendment protects the right of “all Americans” to keep and bear firearms for self-defense, District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570, 581, though like most individual rights it has its limits, id., at 626. To determine when the government infringes the Second Amendment, the Court begins by asking whether the Amendment’s terms cover the conduct in question; if so, the Constitution “presumptively” protects it. New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U. S. 1, 24. To overcome that presumption, the government bears the burden of showing its regulatory efforts are “consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” Ibid. The government need not point to a “historical twin” or “precis[e] . . . historical precursors.” United States v. Rahimi, 602 U. S. 680, 692 (internal quotation marks omitted). Instead, “the appropriate analysis involves considering whether the challenged regulation is consistent with the principles that underpin our regulatory tradition,” ibid., and the government may “reaso[n] by analogy,” showing that its contemporary regulation is “relevantly similar” to ones “well-established” in the Nation’s history. Bruen, 597 U. S., at 28–30. Two features play a “ ‘central’ ” role in determining whether a modern law is “relevantly similar” to historical ones: the “why” and the “how”—the more closely a contemporary law mirrors a well-established historical analogue in purpose and operation, the more likely it is to be upheld. Id., at 29.

The government accepts this framework and agrees that §922(g)(3)’s unlawful user provision burdens conduct presumptively protected by the Second Amendment because the statute bans a class of people, including Mr. Hemani, from possessing essentially any firearm for any purpose. The government construes §922(g)(3) to automatically ban an individual from possessing a gun from the moment he becomes an unlawful user of any controlled substance and remains in effect until he ceases being one, regardless of what controlled substance an individual uses, in what amounts, whether his drug use has ever made him a danger to himself or others, why he keeps a gun, or how safely he does so. The government analogizes its construction of §922(g)(3) to what it calls “habitual drunkard” laws, which it submits enjoy deep roots in the country’s history and are “relevantly similar” to the regulation it wishes to enforce, Bruen, 597 U. S., at 29. These habitual drunkard laws fall into three general categories: vagrancy laws that allowed habitual drunkards to be confined in workhouses or jailed; civil-commitment statutes that allowed courts to appoint guardians for habitual drunkards or authorized their commitment to asylums; and surety laws under which judicial officers could compel habitual drunkards to post surety bonds to ensure their good behavior. Pp. 3–7.

(b) The government’s analogy fails on every metric it invites the Court to consider. Taken cumulatively, these problems prove fatal to the government’s prosecution of Mr. Hemani. Pp. 7–18.

(1) The government’s claim that historical laws targeted habitual drunkards for the same reason §922(g)(3) targets unlawful users—because they regularly use intoxicants—is difficult to square with the historical record. Around the time of the founding and for decades following it, a habitual drunkard was generally someone who “for any considerable part of his time [was] intoxicated to such a degree as to deprive him of his ordinary reasoning faculties,” In re Tracy, 1 Paige Ch. 580, 582–583 (N. Y. Ch.); a regular or even frequent drinker did not usually fit the bill. Many statutes defined the term to require that someone drink to such excess that he was “incapable of conducting [his] own affairs,” Ark. Rev. Stat., ch. 78, §1; “mentally incompetent,” Minn. Terr. Rev. Stat., ch. 67, §12; or had “lost the power of self-control,” 1874 Conn. Pub. Acts 256. Given the “culture of copious drinking” in early America, 43 Law & Hist. Rev. 795, 800, historical laws targeted habitual drunkards not merely because they regularly used intoxicants, but because their drinking rendered them practically incapacitated and incapable of managing their affairs. By contrast, on the government’s account, §922(g)(3) automatically disarms anyone who regularly uses any amount of any controlled substance for anything other than its prescribed purpose, without requiring a showing that a particular individual is regularly incapacitated, incapable of conducting his affairs, or a threat to himself or others. Pp. 8–11.

(2) The government’s claim that §922(g)(3) disarms unlawful drug users to protect the public from unusually dangerous individuals who will commit violent crimes, and that historical laws share a similar purpose, misapprehends the purposes animating those historical analogues. Vagrancy laws usually targeted those who “did not meet the societal expectation of work,” 31 U. Rich. L. Rev. 111, 169, and sought to promote productivity and suppress various vices, not to protect the public from a category of unusually dangerous persons. Civil-commitment laws, by their own terms, generally did not seek to protect the public from violence so much as to protect habitual drunkards from themselves and to protect their families from financial devastation. And the surety-of-good-behavior laws the government invokes did not normally require a showing that an individual posed a threat of violence; instead, they sought to protect the community from scandals “against good morals,” 5 N. Dane, A General Abridgment and Digest of American Law 301 (emphasis deleted). Pp. 11–14.

(3) The way habitual drunkard statutes worked in the past differs significantly from how §922(g)(3)’s unlawful user provision works today. The historical laws the government identifies usually provided some form of process before an individual lost any of his liberties, even temporarily: a vagrant could be sent to a workhouse or jail generally only upon a conviction; a habitual drunkard could be assigned a guardian or committed to an asylum usually only after proceedings before something like a probate court; and surety statutes typically required a proceeding before a justice of the peace or a comparable officer before a bond could be ordered. By contrast, on the government’s account, §922(g)(3) automatically divests an individual of his constitutional right to bear arms the moment he becomes an unlawful user and until he ends his drug use—all without any pre-deprivation process. Pp. 14–15.

(4) There are reasons to doubt that the government has established §922(g)(3) even serves the purpose the government claims, of disarming categorically violent and unusually dangerous persons. Section 922(g)(3)’s reliance on the Controlled Substances Act—a statute adopted to protect “the health and general welfare of the American people,” 21 U. S. C. §801(2), and under which drugs can be added to schedules for reasons having little or nothing to do with their potential to induce violence—makes it far from obvious that 18 U. S. C. §922(g)(3) confines its reach to those who are categorically and unusually dangerous. Additionally, the government’s own regulatory actions undercut its position: the Department of Justice has directed federal prosecutors to curtail enforcement efforts against marijuana users, most States have legalized marijuana use to some degree, and the government recently moved some marijuana products from Schedule I to Schedule III, 91 Fed. Reg. 22714. Affording the government “broad power to designate any group as dangerous and thereby disqualify its members from having a gun” would risk allowing it to “quickly swallow” the Second Amendment. Kanter v. Barr, 919 F. 3d 437, 465 (Barrett, J., dissenting). Pp. 16–18.

(c) The Court’s decision is narrow. It does not address efforts to ban addicts or those presently intoxicated from possessing a firearm; other prophylactic laws Congress might adopt after determining that users of a particular drug pose a special risk of misusing firearms; §922(g)(1)’s provision disarming individuals convicted of felonies; or whether the government could bring a prosecution under §922(g)(3) accompanied by individualized proof that the defendant’s drug use renders him a danger to himself or others, or proof that a certain drug always renders its users dangerous. Pp. 18–19.

Affirmed.

Gorsuch, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Thomas, Sotomayor, Kavanaugh, Barrett, and Jackson, JJ., joined. Thomas, J., filed a concurring opinion. Jackson, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which Sotomayor, J., joined. Alito, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which Kagan, J., joined.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

_________________

No. 24–1234

_________________

UNITED STATES, PETITIONER v. ALI
DANIAL HEMANI

on writ of certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the fifth circuit

[June 18, 2026]

Justice Thomas, concurring.

I agree with the Court that §922(g)(3) violates the Second Amendment as applied to respondent Ali Hemani, and I join its opinion in full. I write separately to call attention to another issue: As a matter of both original meaning and this Court’s precedents, §922(g)(3) appears to exceed Congress’s enumerated power to regulate interstate commerce. The statute makes it a federal crime for unlawful drug users to possess any firearm or ammunition “in or affecting commerce.” 18 U. S. C. §922(g)(3). Under the prevailing interpretation of §922(g)(3), the Government can secure a conviction for unlawful firearm possession “if the firearm possessed” by the drug user “had previously traveled in interstate commerce.” United States v. Rawls, 85 F. 3d 240, 242 (CA5 1996) (per curiam). The Commerce Clause does not authorize Congress to “regulate or ban possession of any item that has ever been offered for sale or crossed state lines.” Alderman v. United States, 562 U. S. 1163, 1167 (2011) (Thomas, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari). Such an understanding would “convert congressional authority under the Commerce Clause to a general police power of the sort retained by the States.” United States v. Lopez, 514 U. S. 549, 567 (1995). So, while the issue was not presented in this case, the Court, and lower courts, should revisit the constitutionality of §922(g).

I

Section 922(g) criminalizes intrastate gun possession. It makes it a felony for enumerated categories of people to, as relevant here, “possess in or affecting commerce, any firearm or ammunition.” §922(g). In Scarborough v. United States, 431 U. S. 563 (1977), this Court held that materially identical language required—as a matter of statutory interpretation—only that “the possessed firearm previously traveled in interstate commerce.” Id., at 564, 578. The courts of appeals have interpreted §922(g)’s “in or affecting commerce” element to likewise require only that same “minimal nexus” to interstate commerce. Rawls, 85 F. 3d, at 242–243 (citing Scarborough, 431 U. S., at 575). In Hemani’s indictment, for example, the Government alleged only that the firearm that he possessed had “been shipped and transported in interstate and foreign commerce” in the past—even though Hemani was indicted for possessing it in his home in Texas. See No. 4:23–cr–00018 (ED Tex.), ECF Doc. 1, p. 1; ante, at 2–3 (majority opinion). The Government did not have to allege, nor would it have had to prove at trial, that Hemani bought the firearm from someone in another State or even carried it across state lines himself at any point. See, e.g., United States v. Ervin, 131 F. 4th 253, 256, 260 (CA4 2025) (upholding conviction of a North Carolina defendant for unlawfully possessing a firearm manufactured in North Carolina because someone else brought it to another State and back to North Carolina).

II

Section 922(g) appears to exceed Congress’s powers under the Commerce Clause. Congress has the power to “regulate Commerce . . . among the several States.” U. S. Const., Art. I, §8, cl. 3. As a matter of both original meaning and this Court’s precedents, Congress lacks the power to regulate the possession of firearms solely on the ground that they crossed state lines at some point in the past.

A

As an original matter, the Commerce Clause authorizes Congress only “to regulate the buying and selling of goods and services trafficked across state lines.” Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U. S. 1, 58 (2005) (Thomas, J., dissenting). It gives Congress no power to regulate “activities wholly separated from business, such as gun possession.” Lopez, 514 U. S., at 599 (Thomas, J., concurring). “[T]he power to regulate ‘commerce’ can by no means encompass authority over mere gun possession, any more than it empowers the Federal Government to regulate marriage, littering, or cruelty to animals, throughout the 50 States.” Id., at 585.

Because §922(g) criminalizes possession of firearms apart from any purchase or sale of goods and services across state lines, I doubt that it could be an exercise of Congress’s Commerce Clause powers as an original matter.

B

Section 922(g), it seems, also “cannot be reconciled” with this Court’s modern Commerce Clause doctrine. Alderman, 562 U. S., at 1166 (opinion of Thomas, J.). Under that doctrine, §922(g) must fall within one of three categories to be constitutional: It must either regulate “the use of the channels of interstate commerce,” “regulate and protect the instrumentalities of interstate commerce, or persons or things in interstate commerce,” or regulate “activities that substantially affect interstate commerce.” Lopez, 514 U. S., at 558–559.

Section 922(g) does not seem to fall within either of the first two categories. It does not, as far as I can tell, regulate the “use of the channels of interstate commerce” because it criminalizes possession of a firearm within a State long after any use of those channels. Nor does it “regulate and protect the instrumentalities of interstate commerce, or persons or things in interstate commerce” because it requires no showing that the possession in question poses any risk to interstate buying, selling, shipping, or transportation.

I also doubt that §922(g) can fall within the third and broadest category for regulations of “activities that substantially affect interstate commerce.” Id., at 559. The mere possession of a firearm that long ago crossed state lines is not “economic activity” in any sense, and the Court has never upheld regulation of intrastate activity that is not “economic in nature” under this category. United States v. Morrison, 529 U. S. 598, 613 (2000). Moreover, our precedents suggest that merely possessing a gun does not have a “substantial effect” on interstate commerce. Section 922(g) targets classes of people that the Government thinks “threaten the safety of the community” if they have weapons. Brief for United States 10. But, the Court has emphatically rejected “the argument that Congress may regulate noneconomic, violent criminal conduct based solely on that conduct’s aggregate effect on interstate commerce.” Morrison, 529 U. S., at 617. Accordingly, in Lopez, the Court concluded that “possession of a gun in a local school zone is in no sense an economic activity that might, through repetition elsewhere, substantially affect any sort of interstate commerce.” 514 U. S., at 567. Like the gun-possession statute at issue in Lopez, §922(g) is not a regulation of economic activity, but a law to combat “crime and violence,” even at the local level. Gun Control Act of 1968, Pub. L. 90–618, §101, 82 Stat. 1213.*

For these reasons, lower court judges have for decades concluded that under this Court’s precedents, §922(g) exceeds Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce. See, e.g., United States v. Chesney, 86 F. 3d 564, 574–575 (CA6 1996) (Batchelder, J., concurring); United States v. Kuban, 94 F. 3d 971, 977 (CA5 1996) (DeMoss, J., dissenting); United States v. Storey, 571 F. Supp. 3d 1296, 1298 (MD Fla. 2021) (Mizelle, J.); United States v. Seekins, 52 F. 4th 988, 991 (CA5 2022) (Ho, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc); United States v. Bonner, 159 F. 4th 338, 343 (CA5 2025) (Willett, J., concurring); see also United States v. Patton, 451 F. 3d 615, 634 (CA10 2006) (McConnell, J.) (regarding an analogous restriction on possessing body armor); United States v. Alderman, 565 F. 3d 641, 648 (CA9 2009) (Paez, J., dissenting) (same); United States v. Alderman, 593 F. 3d 1141 (CA9 2010) (O’Scannlain, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc) (same).

C

In upholding §922(g) under the Commerce Clause, the courts of appeals have misapprehended our precedents in two ways. Some have thought that Scarborough’s statutory holding required them to uphold §922(g)’s constitutionality. Others have concluded that the presence of a so-called “jurisdictional hook” in §922(g) renders the statute constitutional under Lopez and Morrison. Neither rationale establishes that §922(g) is constitutional.

Several courts have upheld §922(g) based on this Court’s decision in Scarborough alone. They have understood Scarborough’s interpretation of the statutory “in” or “affecting commerce” requirement to establish, as a matter of Supreme Court precedent, that §922(g) is a valid exercise of Congress’s Commerce Clause powers in all its applications. Some have even suggested that they would otherwise find §922(g) unconstitutional. See, e.g., Rawls, 85 F. 3d, at 243 (Garwood, J., concurring) (writing for the full panel and explaining that Scarborough “bind[s]” the court to uphold §922(g)’s constitutionality even though “one might well wonder how it could rationally be concluded that mere possession of a firearm in any meaningful way concerns interstate commerce”); United States v. Gateward, 84 F. 3d 670, 671 (CA3 1996) (upholding the statute on the ground that Lopez did not abrogate Scarborough); Patton, 451 F. 3d, at 636 (“[W]e see considerable tension between Scarborough” and later decisions, but “we are bound by Scarborough”).

Those courts misread Scarborough. The Court has never held that §922(g) is constitutional whenever the Scarborough test is satisfied. See Alderman, 562 U. S., at 1168 (opinion of Thomas, J.). Scarborough’s holding “was statutory, not constitutional.” Seekins, 52 F. 4th, at 991 (opinion of Ho, J.); accord, Bonner, 159 F. 4th, at 342 (Willett, J., concurring); Brief for Firearms Policy Coalition as Amicus Curiae 13–14. Scarborough addressed only whether “Congress intended no more than a minimal nexus requirement” in its statutory requirement that the firearm in question was received, possessed, or transported “in commerce or affecting commerce.” 431 U. S., at 564, 577 (internal quotation marks omitted). It based its holding on the statute’s “language” and “legislative history,” not constitutional law. Id., at 575. Scarborough cannot be taken, by this Court or the courts of appeals, as purporting to settle the question of §922(g)’s constitutionality. See United States v. L. A. Tucker Truck Lines, Inc., 344 U. S. 33, 38 (1952) (explaining that holdings of this Court cannot be gleaned from issues not “discussed in the opinion of the Court”).

Other courts have upheld §922(g)’s constitutionality solely on the ground that it has a “jurisdictional hook” purporting to connect the offense to interstate commerce. E.g., United States v. McAllister, 77 F. 3d 387, 389–390 (CA11 1996); United States v. Dorris, 236 F. 3d 582, 585–586 (CA10 2000); United States v. Lemons, 302 F. 3d 769, 772 (CA7 2002); United States v. Smith, 101 F. 3d 202, 215 (CA1 1996); United States v. Hanna, 55 F. 3d 1456, 1462, n. 2 (CA9 1995); United States v. Singletary, 268 F. 3d 196, 204 (CA3 2001). Under Scarborough, §922(g) requires that the firearm at some point traveled across state lines. This jurisdictional element, these courts say, itself shows a sufficient “nexus with interstate commerce.” United States v. Bell, 70 F. 3d 495, 498 (CA7 1995); accord, e.g., Rawls, 85 F. 3d, at 242–243; United States v. Bolton, 68 F. 3d 396, 400 (CA10 1995). And, on this view, the “jurisdictional element” in §922(g) “distinguishes it from the statutes considered in Lopez and Morrison,” which lacked such a hook. Singletary, 268 F. 3d, at 204.

This justification, too, appears to conflict with our precedents. Congress cannot regulate the possession of every thing that ever traveled across state lines. Alderman, 562 U. S., at 1167 (opinion of Thomas, J.). As a statutory matter, Congress required no more. But, treating Congress’s “jurisdictional element” as dispositive “could very well remove any limit on the commerce power” and “would trespass on traditional state police powers.” Ibid. It would also render meaningless this Court’s decisions requiring that exercises of the commerce power fit within defined categories. Morrison, 529 U. S., at 608–609.

Nothing in Lopez or Morrison suggests anything to the contrary. Lopez considered a jurisdictional hook helpful only if it “would ensure, through case-by-case inquiry, that the firearm possession in question affects interstate commerce.” 514 U. S., at 561. But, as explained, §922(g)’s bare requirement that the firearm previously traveled across state lines does not ensure that the firearm possession in question affects interstate commerce: Mere possession of a firearm does not necessarily affect commerce at all. Morrison also said that a jurisdictional hook could help show that the statute “is in pursuance of Congress’ power to regulate interstate commerce.” 529 U. S., at 613. But, the fact that §922(g) purports to be an exercise of Congress’s Commerce Clause powers does not mean that it falls within the legitimate scope of those powers.

III

Under our Constitution, “[t]he powers of the legislature are defined, and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken, or forgotten, the constitution is written.” Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 176 (1803). It has now been 26 years since a party has received relief in this Court based on a Commerce Clause challenge. Such relief has also been hard to come by in the lower courts, as the decisions concerning §922(g) show. This question merits a closer look in an appropriate case. For, like Judge Batchelder, “I . . . am unprepared to reduce the Supreme Court’s Lopez decision to an anachronism to be noted in passing but ignored. Congress’s enumerated powers, like Supreme Court opinions setting forth their limits, are, in my view, to be taken seriously.” Chesney, 86 F. 3d, at 580 (concurring opinion).

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

_________________

No. 24–1234

_________________

UNITED STATES, PETITIONER v. ALI
DANIAL HEMANI

on writ of certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the fifth circuit

[June 18, 2026]

Justice Jackson, with whom Justice Sotomayor joins, concurring.

I join the Court’s opinion in full because it correctly applies our decisions in New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U. S. 1 (2022), and United States v. Rahimi, 602 U. S. 680 (2024). But I continue to believe that we veered off course in Bruen. See Rahimi, 602 U. S., at 741 (concurring opinion). I write separately to emphasize that means-end scrutiny—the approach courts applied before we adopted Bruen’s “history and tradition” metric—offers a more rational way of assessing the constitutionality of firearm regulations.

As I and others have elsewhere explained, Bruen is unworkable. It imposes on judges the unfamiliar and difficult tasks of sifting through centuries-old evidence in order to answer “contested historical questions,” and “applying those answers to resolve contemporary problems.” 597 U. S., at 107 (Breyer, J., dissenting). Given those challenges, it is unsurprising that Bruen’s test is vulnerable to inconsistent and arbitrary application, as judges draw different conclusions from the same historical evidence and reach divergent assessments of the same laws. See Rahimi, 602 U. S., at 743 (Jackson, J., concurring).

Perhaps worst of all, Bruen leaves no room to consider “the real and present stakes of the problems facing our society today.” Rahimi, 602 U. S., at 706 (Sotomayor, J., concurring). Instead, to pass a new firearm regulation, legislatures and their lawyers are, as a practical matter, forced to trawl through inconclusive and incomplete historical records in search of evidence they can only hope will satisfy this Court. See id., at 747 (Jackson, J., concurring).

The difficulties Bruen has created are all the more striking when compared to the test it abolished: means-end scrutiny. Under that framework, courts measured the strength of the government’s justification for the firearm restriction against the burden that restriction imposed on Second Amendment rights. See Bruen, 597 U. S., at 18–19 (majority opinion). Courts applied “strict scrutiny if the burden” on Second Amendment rights was “severe” and “intermediate scrutiny” if it was not. Id., at 103 (Breyer, J., dissenting). The means-end scrutiny assessment did not bind governments to the policy judgments of legislatures of yore, but neither did it operate as a blank check that allowed governments to trample on a constitutional right. See, e.g., New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Cuomo, 804 F. 3d 242, 264 (CA2 2015) (holding that a state ban on magazines loaded with more than seven rounds of ammunition violated the Second Amendment), abrogated on other grounds by Bruen, 597 U. S. 1; Ezell v. Chicago, 651 F. 3d 684, 708–709, 711 (CA7 2011) (preliminarily enjoining, under the Second Amendment, a city ordinance banning firing ranges).

Constitutional adjudication through means-ends scrutiny is squarely within the competence of courts. Indeed, for other constitutional rights, courts regularly assess whether the government’s justification for a law is legitimate and whether the law’s operation is sufficiently tailored to promote that justification. See, e.g., Reed v. Town of Gilbert, 576 U. S. 155, 164, 171–172 (2015) (applying strict scrutiny, under the First Amendment, to a content-based restriction on speech); City of Austin v. Reagan Nat. Advertising of Austin, LLC, 596 U. S. 61, 69, 76–77 (2022) (holding that intermediate scrutiny, under the First Amendment, applied to a content-neutral law); Sessions v. Morales-Santana, 582 U. S. 47, 58 (2017) (applying heightened scrutiny, under the Fifth Amendment, to a
gender-based immigration law); Johnson v. California, 543 U. S. 499, 509 (2005) (applying strict scrutiny, under the Fourteenth Amendment, to a racial classification). There is no reason why an approach that has worked well enough in these other contexts would pose a problem only for Second Amendment adjudication.

Best of all, applying means-end scrutiny to firearm restrictions like the 18 U. S. C. §922(g)(3) prosecution before us would be straightforward. We would be tasked with answering familiar questions: How severe is the law’s burden on Second Amendment rights? Does the government have a strong interest in preventing firearm possession by those “who pose a special danger of misuse”? Brief for United States 12. And is §922(g)(3)’s ban on firearm possession by unlawful users of marijuana sufficiently tailored to that interest?

Notably, even as the government and the Court endorse the Bruen framework, both seem to acknowledge the relevance of these questions. For example, the government emphasizes that the purpose (the “end”) of §922(g)(3) is to restrict possession of firearms by people who pose a special risk of misuse. See Brief for United States 12. And, it claims, §922(g)(3) furthers that purpose by targeting people who, in Congress’s judgment, pose an increased risk of firearm misuse because they “regularly and routinely us[e]” illegal drugs (the “means”). Tr. of Oral Arg. 17–18; see id., at 59–60. This argument boils down to the idea that §922(g)(3) is sufficiently tailored to Congress’s legitimate purpose of preventing firearm misuse.

In response, this Court speaks in the same register. It rejects the government’s means-end calculus by suggesting that the government has not established that the actual purpose of §922(g)(3) is to disarm “unusually dangerous” people. Ante, at 16 (internal quotation marks omitted). Using the substances that trigger application of §922(g)(3) even regularly does not, in the Court’s view, necessarily make users dangerous, violent, or otherwise susceptible to misusing firearms. See ante, at 16–18. In other words, the Court’s discussion implies that §922(g)(3)’s operation is not sufficiently tailored to the government’s stated purpose—precisely the issue to which means-end scrutiny would direct our focus.

Adding to Bruen’s weaknesses is the fact that its framework provides no clear role for this kind of tailoring discussion. But such analysis is key. Scrutinizing the fit between a challenged law’s justification and its operation is an essential part of any sensible framework for Second Amendment adjudication. In a future case that squarely presents the question, we should consider whether to retire the failed Bruen experiment and return to an explicit assessment of Congress’s ends and means when deciding the constitutionality of firearm restrictions.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

_________________

No. 24–1234

_________________

UNITED STATES, PETITIONER v. ALI
DANIAL HEMANI

on writ of certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the fifth circuit

[June 18, 2026]

Justice Alito, with whom Justice Kagan joins, concurring in the judgment.

I agree with the Court that the historical analogues that the Government cites are not “relevantly similar” to 18 U. S. C. §922(g)(3) as applied to respondent. New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U. S. 1, 29 (2022). I therefore agree that we should affirm the judgment of the Fifth Circuit. I also agree that nothing in the opinion of the Court should be read to cast doubt on the constitutionality of other provisions of §922(g), such as §§922(g)(1) and (4), the “prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill,” District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570, 626 (2008), which we have repeatedly said are “ ‘presumptively lawful,’ ” United States v. Rahimi, 602 U. S. 680, 699 (2024) (quoting Heller, 554 U. S., at 627, n. 26). See ante, at 15–16, n. 6 (quoting Heller, 554 U. S., at 626).

Although I agree with the Court on these points, I would affirm on a different ground from those on which the majority relies. As the opinion of the Court explains, the habitual-drunkard laws that the Government cites did not allow officials to disarm all those who “regularly used intoxicants,” or even just those who “sometimes used them to excess.” Ante, at 10. These laws instead threatened disarmament only for those whose use of an intoxicant “rendered them practically incapacitated and incapable of managing their affairs.” Ibid. Those persons drank so much, so often, that they were incapacitated not only during bouts of drunkenness but also in a more persistent and pervasive manner. Yet the Government argues that these historical analogues establish a regulatory tradition that allows it to disarm “anyone” who regularly uses “any amount” of marijuana unlawfully. Ibid.

The mismatch between the Government’s historical analogues and the theory on which the Government defends the constitutionality of §922(g)(3) as applied to respondent is clear. All that we know about respondent’s marijuana use is that he used the drug about every other day. We do not know how much he used, the strength of the marijuana he used, how many times he used it on the days in question, the time of day when he used it, where he used it, or the degree to which this use affected his ability to exercise judgment and perform daily tasks responsibly. As a result, the Government has failed to show that a marijuana user like respondent is incapacitated in a way analogous to the habitual drunkards that the Government’s analogues regulated.

Marijuana consumption is increasingly common in this country. Many States have legalized its use and sale, and although possession of the drug remains a federal crime, very few persons are convicted of that offense each year. The Government has largely tolerated the production and sale of marijuana when done in accord with state law, and it has allowed a multi-billion-dollar marijuana business to develop. For its part, Congress has restricted the use of appropriated funds to prevent States from implementing laws that allow the use, distribution, possession, or cultivation of medical marijuana, or to prosecute certain parties that produce, distribute, or possess marijuana in compliance with state law.

In these circumstances, marijuana use today is like alcohol use at the founding. It is widespread and increasingly considered socially acceptable in many quarters. And from a practical standpoint, law enforcement widely tolerates the use of marijuana.

These similarities underscore the deficiency of the Government’s analogues. To succeed, the Government would need to identify a regulatory principle that justified disarmament of persons who are relevantly similar to the occasional marijuana user. But whereas the Government’s analogues allowed disarmament only of those whose extreme use of an intoxicant (alcohol) incapacitated them habitually, §922(g)(3) as applied to respondent allows disarmament of those who do no more than “regularly us[e]” a similar intoxicant (marijuana) unlawfully.

In attempting to rebuff a Second Amendment challenge, the Government need not identify a historical twin or precise precursor. Rahimi, 602 U. S., at 692. Still, the Government must cite analogues that are “relevantly similar” and that therefore furnish a basis for inferring that a challenged law is consistent with the historical understanding of the right that the Second Amendment codified. Here, the Government’s analogues are too far afield to justify the application of §922(g) to a marijuana user like respondent.

We need not say more to decide this case, and I would for that reason say no more. I accordingly would affirm on this ground alone.