Supreme Court Rules Federal Drug-User Gun Ban Unconstitutional in Texas Case
The decision narrows a federal firearms prohibition that has been applied to millions of Americans, with downstream implications for how Congress and federal prosecutors define the boundaries of...
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday in favor of a Texas man who challenged the federal statute, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3), which prohibits persons who are unlawful users of or addicted to controlled substances from possessing firearms. The Court's decision, issued June 18, 2026, sided with the petitioner and found the law, as applied, could not be sustained under the Second Amendment framework established in the Court's 2022 ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which requires gun regulations to be rooted in the nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation. The case was reported by CBS News on June 18, 2026.
The Bruen standard, established in the Court's 6-3 2022 opinion authored by Justice Clarence Thomas, shifted the constitutional test for Second Amendment challenges away from a means-ends balancing approach and toward a historical analogue analysis. Lower federal courts have since divided on how to apply that standard to § 922(g)(3), producing a circuit split that made Supreme Court review likely. The specific facts of the Texas petitioner's case — including the nature of the drug use alleged and the circumstances of firearm possession — are contained in the case record, which is publicly available through the Supreme Court's online docket.
The federal prohibition under § 922(g)(3) has been used by the Department of Justice in prosecutions across the country. According to the U.S. Sentencing Commission's fiscal year 2024 annual report, firearms offenses accounted for approximately 8.3 percent of all federal sentences that year, though the Commission does not separately itemize § 922(g)(3) convictions from other subsections in its public summary tables. The precise number of active prosecutions or convictions relying solely on the drug-user provision is not specified in publicly available DOJ or Sentencing Commission summary data; the Bureau of Justice Statistics case-level data would be the record most likely to answer that question.
Congress enacted § 922(g)(3) as part of the Gun Control Act of 1968 (Pub. L. 90-618). The statute has not been substantively amended since. Whether Thursday's ruling invalidates the provision on its face — for all persons and circumstances — or only as applied to the specific petitioner is a material legal distinction that determines the scope of its effect on pending and future prosecutions. The full opinion, concurrences, and any dissents are publicly available on the Supreme Court's website at supremecourt.gov and provide the authoritative answer to that question.
What remains unknown as of publication is the precise vote breakdown and authorship of the majority opinion, as well as whether the Justice Department intends to issue new prosecutorial guidance in response. A DOJ press release or internal memorandum, which would be subject to public reporting or potential congressional inquiry, would be the document most likely to clarify the executive branch's response. Congress may also face pressure to amend § 922(g)(3) to conform to the Court's ruling, a process that would be tracked in the congressional record of the Senate Judiciary Committee and House Judiciary Committee.