24-1234 United States V. Hemani (06/18/2026)

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-1234_g2bh.pdf

Good morning!  Today will be two things:

1.  An overview of 18 United States Code 922, which governs firearm and ammunition possession / transfers / sales.

2.  An analysis of United States V. Hemani and what I expect the impact to be of this landmark US Supreme Court decision.

Whether you've followed Hemani or, more likely, the Hunter Biden prosecution, the court's interpretation of 18 USC 922(g)(3) is what matters.

Tune in for a hot take on how this has changed the game, though perhaps not how you think!

-LEO

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Good morning. It's Leo and welcome back. Thanks for listening. Today I'm going to get into 18 United States Code 922, which is highly debated throughout the NRA, 2A groups, Second Amendment supporters, the people that, you know, hate the ATF and say abolish the ATF. 18 United States Code 922 is the code section that govern federally governs firearms, ammunition, transfers, things like that. So it is a hot topic. And there was a very recent ruling at the United States Supreme Court level involving a man named Ali Hamani. So Ali Hamani is an Iranian fell, an Iranian fella down in Texas. And he came on the radar. There were discussions of possible ties to terrorism. The FBI was investigating. I don't know how that was corroborated or not, but he ended up being charged under 18 United States Code 922 G3. I'm about to go through what all the different Gs are as far as the different breakdowns of the federal code section. And then we'll go into the importance of this ruling and kind of my legal analysis of it. I did read the ruling, all the opinions, things of that nature, and how I read that. You can find it very easily for yourself online. I encourage you, as always, to read it for yourself. It's spelled Ali A-L-I and then Hamani, H-E-M-A-N-I. Very easy to find. So let's first go through the 922 Gs. 922 G1, that's the most common one you see, the first of them. And these are all different prohibited persons that are prohibited by federal law from possessing firearms. 922 G1 prohibits convicted felons from possessing firearms. 922 G2, I'm not going to do the numbers throughout, but I'll just go through the different things. It's fugitives. If you're fleeing from justice, you cannot possess a gun legally. You can be charged with that. G3 is the one that I'm going to get way into today, that the Supreme Court ruled on, made some changes to it involving Ali Hamani. That is, it's it also became famous with the Hunter Biden case. It is, it prohibits unlawful users or drug addicts from possessing firearms. And then there's a bunch of other ones. There's people with mental health adjudications. If you've been deemed mentally unfit, you can't have a gun, certain immigration statuses. I believe that's 922-0, not G, people with dishonorable discharges, people that have renounced their citizenship, people convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence. A lot of time I think that requires injury, but those are the general prohibitions. If you've ever bought a gun before, you've gone down the ATF form, and there's a bunch of different things that you have to check. And it says things like, I certify that I'm not a convicted felon. I'm not a fugitive from justice. If I remember right, like you answer yes to the first one and then no to the rest. And that's that's the only way you're gonna get a gun. Because the first one is like, are you actually buying this gun for yourself? Yes. And then the rest of them are like, are you an illegal drug user? Are you addicted to drugs? Are you an illegal immigrant? All this stuff that would prohibit you. So if you check yes on any of those, they're not gonna sell you a gun in that store. Today we're gonna get into 18 USC 922 G3. That is possession of a firearm by an unlawful drug user or a drug addict. And this has been widely debated because obviously marijuana is becoming legal all over the place. People are starting to speak up more about gun rights and say, you know, you shall not infringe my rights and all these things. And uh mainly with the legalization of marijuana, the question starts becoming is it still illegal? Because you can be charged with 922 G3 if you are a consistent pot smoker who carries a gun. And that's what got explored in this case. So in the US versus Hamani, what happened is they were investigating him for whatever reason, and they ended up doing a search warrant on his, I believe it was his house, might have been his business. I think it was his home. And they got some cocaine, they got some weed, they got a gun, at least one gun, and they got some admissions that he smokes weed like every other day. Like he's a consistent regular weed smoker, right? And so they charged him with 18 USC 922 G3. He was not a felon. I don't think he had any other prohibitions that were prohibiting him from having a gun, but they, you know, he had drugs and so they stuck him with that. Well, how that went is it ended up going up to the Supreme Court, and there was an analysis of the legality and of if this law was being applied correctly in this situation. And it is gonna make some changes, but some of the, you know, strong 2A groups are kind of, I think they're thinking that there's gonna be more changes than there are. And I think the changes that the court made are very reasonable, and I'm about to explain them. They basically said that, you know, somebody that's smoking marijuana every other day, it's it's not making them more violent. It's not making them more dangerous. So they kind of went down the rabbit hole on, you know, when and why this was designed. And I believe it started with alcohol, and it was for people that were going out of their minds on a substance. Drunkards, I think is the word they actually used. So if you're losing your mind on a substance, so a couple things that they said. Basically, the the 922 G3 was used in this case to charge him. There was no showing that Ali Hamani was a dangerous man. My understanding is that was not proven in any way. It was just proven that he was a drug user with a gun. And so the court is kind of refocusing on are they actually dangerous or is the drug inherently gonna make them dangerous? So it's kind of a twofold thing. The actual quote was if they're gonna charge G3, which is it is still a law, but it needs to be, quote, accompanied by individualized proof that the defendant's use of marijuana or any other drug renders him a danger to himself or others. So that seems reasonable, that it's not just a standalone thing. There needs to be proof that there is a danger. The second prong to that, that they also said, is, or there can be, quote, proof that a certain drug always renders its users dangerous because of its potency or some other reason. So that's also an important one to factor in. Does marijuana always make people more violent? No. Does meth? Yeah, meth does always make people erratic. So again, you got to make your own choices. The prosecutors do, but I would say if they got meth in a gun, you're still good based on the court's ruling. They also stated multiple times in the ruling that they're not causing any issues in this ruling involving 922 G1, which is the prohibition of convicted felons owning and possessing firearms. They're not changing that. They're not tinkering with that. So that's what I've seen and heard quite a bit is people, you know, basically thinking that 922G is going to be a wash in and of itself. And that's just not accurate at all. The only part of G that they touched is G3, which is the substance use, and they still left it open to charge people that are using drugs because they're using drugs. They're just creating the factor, they're exaggerating, they're they're diving more and which is totally reasonable. Like, hey, if you're smoking weed and you sit on a couch and play video games all day and you have a pistol, like there that's no longer gonna be chargeable. So unless you're doing something stupid, unless you're becoming violent, which, in my opinion, that nobody's asking for. That's how all gun laws should be. It should be the misuse of a gun that causes issues. Nobody wants my opinion, but that is my strong opinion, is that if you're gonna make guns illegal, then car you got to make cars illegal, you got to make pencils illegal. Are guns easier to misuse? Yes. But if you look at these other countries in Europe where the guns are much less prevalent, what do they do? They do stabbing attacks, they do car attacks. So it's it's not the gun, it's the individual user, and that's what they're focusing on is the dangerousness of that person or that really hard drug that they're choosing to put in their body. So, long story short, you've been explained the federal gun code section in an absolute nutshell. It's been like 10 minutes. And the big ones that you see, man, are G1. G1 is the main one, possession of a fire and by a felon. If you go to federal court on every any given day and you choose to sit down and watch some hearings, if the ATF's there, they're probably going to be charging G1s. It's it's not usually a fugitive fleeing from justice. Like I've never seen that charged. And it's the occasional G3. And, you know, a lot of these people that have been charged with G3, they're probably thinking, like, I don't even barely need to do this appeal because I already won. But a lot of them were targeted for enforcement because they're dangerous people. They might have, they might be in a gang and they're not prohibited yet because they're only 18. But, you know, the federal agency, whoever was looking into them, knew they were doing drive-bys all the time and they did a search warrant on their house. It doesn't sound like that was the case with Ali Hamani, but you know, these normal cases, which are gangbangers that are shooting all the time, I think a lot of those will probably still stick because they've been shown as dangerous drug users. So it'll be interesting to see how the lower courts explore that because I'm sure they're going to get a wave of appeals for convictions and it's going to be an argument at every single court hearing. I've seen court hearings, I don't know, half a dozen times where people are basically saying, let's wait until this goes through. There they weren't even wanting to litigate G3 cases because they knew this was sitting at the Supreme Court. So now the Supreme Court has ruled on that Leo guy's social media, Instagram, Facebook, maybe even TikTok, I don't know. I'll put links to the case, but you can find it very easily. I already spelled out the name. If you just put his name or take an extra step and put US versus and then his name, Ali Hamani, it will come up. You can read it for yourself. And when you're reading these courts' opinions, if you don't have the patience to read nine or 30 or however many pages, I encourage you to, you know, you can skip the facts if you want. I already gave you the facts. Read one or two of the individual justices' opinions, and you'll you'll get a feeling for how they think and read the conclusion section. It'll be really short and you'll get an idea of what they're looking at and why. And as law enforcement officers, it will help you to make your case better because you'll see when it gets into these courts how the judges analyze it and decide if your evidence gets in or if your case gets thrown out. So thank you for your time. I hope this helps somebody. And if you have any questions, as always, feel free to reach out. Have a great weekend.