The criminal charge against Hunter Biden for illegal gun possession could violate the new and broader Second Amendment

interpretation

which is gaining popularity among conservative courts.

The P

resident

Biden

The man’s son is not accused of using a firearm to commit a crime, but rather lying about his drug use when he bought a gun in 2018.

This is exactly the kind of regulation under fire from judges who say the Second Amendment protects gun rights broadly in the way the First Amendment broadly protects free speech.

Last month, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans dismissed the criminal conviction of a Mississippi man who was stopped by police last year for driving without a license plate. They smelled marijuana and found marijuana cigarette butts in his car, as well as two loaded weapons: a 9mm pistol and a semiautomatic rifle.

Patrick Daniels, the driver, admitted it was

a

regular user of marijuana, and he was charged and convicted of violating federal law that makes it a crime for anyone who is “an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance… to possess a firearm.” ”

A federal judge upheld his conviction on the grounds that Daniels was not a “law-abiding, responsible citizen” and because he had violated long-standing gun regulations.

But the 5th Circuit Court disagreed, overturning his conviction in August with a 3-0 decision. This was based on last year’s Supreme Court ruling that expanded the scope of the Second Amendment.

The court’s opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas said that an individual’s “right to bear arms” should generally prevail unless the government can show that its gun restrictions are consistent with early American history when the Second Amendment was adopted.

Appellate Judge Jerry Smith said there is no early American history of restricting guns for addicted people, other than a few ordinances banning drunk people from firing guns during New Year’s celebrations.

“At no time during the 18th or 19th centuries did the government disarm individuals who used drugs or alcohol at one time from owning guns at another,” Smith wrote. Meanwhile, the gun control law was “the first federal law of its kind” and “did not go into effect until 1968, nearly two centuries after the Second Amendment was passed.”

Law professors who closely follow the Second Amendment say Hunter Biden’s charge of illegal gun possession could be challenged and dismissed on constitutional grounds.

“That’s a distinct possibility,” said Jacob D. Charles, a Pepperdine law professor. He said the 5th Circuit was the only appeals court to directly rule on a challenge to the gun control law, but other judges were “skeptical of the government’s power to ban someone from owning guns based on nonviolent conduct of Past.”

However, lawyers for the Biden administration are urging the Supreme Court to step back and uphold laws that restrict gun rights for “individuals who are not law-abiding, responsible citizens.”

The government appealed a 5th Circuit ruling in March that struck down a law that banned gun ownership for those subject to domestic violence restraining orders. There, too, the justices said there was no early American history of taking guns away from domestic violence. The court overturned the conviction of a Texas man described by prosecutors as a drug dealer involved in five shootings.

Attorney General Elizabeth Prelogar appealed and the justices agreed to hear the US vs. Rahimi case in November.

“Governments have long disarmed individuals who pose a threat to the security of others,” she said.

But even a Supreme Court ruling in that case may not save the federal law that bans gun ownership for those who do

to have

uses illegal drugs.

Thursday’s indictment charged Hunter Biden with two counts of making false statements while denying his drug addiction

apply for

buy a gun in a store

in

Wilmington, Del. There is a separate count of illegal gun possession.

Gun rights advocates offered him no support after the indictment.

“The Gun Owners of America are against all gun control,” said Erich Pratt, the group’s senior vice president, “but as long as this president continues to use every tool at his disposal to harass and criminalize guns, gun owners and gun dealers , his son should receive the same treatment and control as all of us.