Transcription
Major, major breaking news. As in a shocking, unanimous nine-to-zero win for the Second Amendment. The US Supreme Court unanimously rejected the views of Solicitor General John Sauer in finding that using marijuana as a regular user, and nothing more, is not a basis for you to lose your Second Amendment rights. A huge win for the Second Amendment. A terrible blow for the anti-gunners in America. An amazing and shocking destruction and slap in the face of the US Solicitor General's office that brought this Hamidi case over the objections from people like me that said this was insane, and it backfired spectacularly. We're very lucky we dodged this bullet, but this is a huge deal, folks. Very bad news for the anti-gunners, and you should all be sipping your celebratory drink today because we won, unanimously, 9-0, the US Supreme Court case of US versus Hamidi. Amazing. Amazing. With huge repercussions in our favor, too, for years to come. Let's break it all down when we come back.
Hey folks, I'm Mark Smith, host of the Four Boxes Diner, proud American gun owner, constitutional attorney, member of the United States Supreme Court Bar, and proud to say the top voice of the Second Amendment in America. Thank you. 2025 and 2026. Gun rights words.
All right, folks. I cannot, I cannot, uh, exaggerate what I'm about to say. This is an amazing occurrence that has just occurred. A unanimous 9-to-0 victory for the Second Amendment, with even the liberals ruling in favor of the Second Amendment, saying that Mr. Hamidi, a regular user of marijuana, could not be disarmed, cannot be convicted under federal gun control law 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(3), that says that if you're an unlawful user of a drug, then you are disarmed while you're using the drug or while you're an unlawful drug user. In this case, it was marijuana. 9 to 0. The US Supreme Court just ruled that the Department of Justice's position, advocated by Solicitor General John Sauer, over objections from people like me that said you should not bring this case for a whole host of reasons. But as it turns out, this is a spectacular backfire against the government and a huge, massive victory, and really a shocking victory for the Second Amendment for many reasons. And this decision, which we're going to break down in detail in just one second, has amazing language in it that we in the Second Amendment community are going to be able to use to vindicate Second Amendment rights all across this great country. And if you ask yourselves, why do we grind away every day in the Second Amendment space? Why do we fight to get Donald Trump elected? Why do we fight to get good justices on the Supreme Court? Why do we do scholarship? Why do we come up with arguments? Why do we fight for our rights? It's because it gave rise to days like today, to massive victories like what just happened today in the US Supreme Court in US versus Hamidi. And this is going to ripple out all across the country in every Second Amendment case. And not only that, it also is a sign that the AR-15 cases are looking very good, and we'll explain that why in just one second.
Okay, so let's break this down in detail. As you know, there's a federal statute, 18 U.S.C. 922(g), which lists what are known as prohibited persons. These are people who, if you fall into one of these categories, are not allowed to possess firearms. One such category is 922(g)(3), that says if you're an unlawful user of a substance like marijuana, if you're not legally using marijuana, for example, or you're illegally using cocaine or whatever it is, and you're illegally using this, you are not allowed to possess a firearm. So if you're illegally using ambient that you borrow or use from your spouse or from, or your kid uses, whatever it is, and you're illegally using it under the federal government's interpretation in the statute, you are not permitted to possess a firearm.
Well, the US Supreme Court in this case of US versus Hamidi, arising out of the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit down there in Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana, just said that merely being an unlawful user of a drug is not a basis by itself to lose your Second Amendment rights and to be disarmed. And they point out that, by the way, that under the statute, you can go to prison for over 10 years. It's crazy. It's crazy.
Now, Mr. Hamidi here was arrested and convicted of possessing a firearm despite admitting that he was a regular user of marijuana. The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit said down there in Texas that, you know what, this is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment because when you apply the Bruen methodology, which says you start with the plain text of the Second Amendment, obviously, you, you know, if, if you have a law that prevents you from keeping a gun or from carrying a gun, that implicates that law implicates the plain text of the Second Amendment, which means the burden shifts to the government to do what? The government has to show that there's a long-standing historical tradition of firearms regulation that would be analogous to, sufficiently analogous to, or similar to the modern-day gun control law they're trying to enforce. And if the government cannot meet that burden, then that law is unconstitutional, or at least unconstitutional as applied to you.
So here, the government pushed this case to the US Supreme Court and asked the Supreme Court to hear this case after the government lost in the Fifth Circuit. And I vehemently opposed this. I said, "This is a terrible idea if you support the Second Amendment." Because I thought it was extremely dangerous and extremely likely that former DOJ lawyers, Justice Alito, Justice Roberts, and Justice Kavanaugh, who don't like criminals, they don't like drug addicts, they don't like drug dealers. And we know that Justice Brown Jackson, we know that Justice Kagan, and we know Justice Sotomayor don't like the Second Amendment as a general matter. So to me, it was a terrible strategic move on the part of John Sauer, the Solicitor General of the United States, to push this case to the US Supreme Court. And they did it anyway. And I'm happy to report, against all odds, the US Supreme Court has stepped up and said, "No way, no how. This law as applied to Mr. Hamidi is unconstitutional and inconsistent with the historical tradition of firearms regulation in the United States." And as a consequence, this law violates the Second Amendment. And that is the holding, and that is a great holding. But it gets much, much better.
Because remember, if you watch the Four Boxes Diner channel, I train you to be a professional, to elevate your game above just screaming "shall not be infringed." Now, the reason why I say that is, as you know, there's two critical things when you look to whether or not a Supreme Court decision is good or bad for your agenda, for whatever it is you care about. The first is who wins the case. But the second part, which in many respects is even more important than who wins the case, is how they won or lost the case. It's the methodology that the court adopts. And here, not only did the Supreme Court rule for Mr. Hamidi and say that his conviction for possessing a firearm while being an unlawful user of marijuana, not only did they rule for Mr. Hamidi, which is great. They actually laid out a beautiful articulation of the Bruen methodology, which puts to rest any suggestion, any suggestion that the US Supreme Court and Bruen loosened up the standards of Bruen to establish a historical tradition to the point where they would render irrelevant the Second Amendment.
As you may recall, after the Bruen decision, which we lost, many people on the right, many Second Amendment people, including many anti-gunners, argued that the Supreme Court and Bruen showed that the court is retreating from putting the feet to the fire of the government to make them show a real robust, well-established historical tradition of firearms regulation to win. They basically said that after Bruen, all you have to do is rubber stamp whatever the government says, and the courts are going to rule for the government. And I, in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, vigorously disputed that notion, that said the Bruen did not loosen up the standards and that the Second Amendment is going to be robustly protected by the Supreme Court moving forward. And it turns out that I was proven 100% correct. Because anybody that thinks that the Bruen case was going to loosen up the standards and make it easier for the government to win, to win, and for the easier for the government to establish a historical firearms regulation, is going to be sadly disappointed with this decision. Because the Supreme Court literally tightened up, robustly, the standards that the government must meet to show a historical tradition of firearms regulation to justify a modern-day gun control law. In other words, they've made it much, much harder for the government to win, which is what we want.
Now, with that said, let's look at some of the language in this case that we should all be cheering for. Number one, there's many things here. We're not going to go in a particular order. I'm going to hit the highlights. Number one, the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court hammered home over and over and over again that the really, the only reason that one can be disarmed in America, consistent with the Second Amendment, is if you are found to be a violent danger to yourself or to others. This is something we've hammered home over and over and over again on this channel, that the only basis in American law for disarming a person, consistent with the historical tradition associated with firearms laws in America going back to the founding in 1791 and the Second Amendment, is if you have been found by some court or some other process to be a violent danger to yourself or to others. Maybe because you're a murderer and a rapist and you're a thug. Or maybe because you're mentally ill and you're like a psychopath like Michael Myers in the Halloween movies, if you know what I'm saying, right? Those are examples of people that have been found through a legal process to be a violent danger. And that's what the case in the Zachie Raheem case a few years ago, where he was found to be a violent danger because he took his girlfriend's head and bashed it against the dashboard and then shot at witnesses and admitted to being in a violent danger in a court proceeding. Again, you look at this court opinion today in Hamidi, the court repeatedly talks about dangerous, dangerous, dangerous to yourself and dangerous to others. And that is very good news because that means that before you can be deprived of your right, there has to be an establishment of you being a danger to yourself or to others. And it doesn't mean some, you know, danger to democracy stuff. It means, no, a physically violent danger to others. That's number one.
The other great takeaway here, and this is a big deal, and I don't think anyone's going to pick up on this, but I'm going to flag it for people so you all can take it and force multiply and get it out there, is the Supreme Court specifically talks about that to be, to be disarmed, there has to be some sort of, listen carefully, listen carefully to the words, there has to be some sort of pre-deprivation process. Pre-deprivation process. What that means is that in the context of, let's say, red flag laws, before you can be disarmed, there has to be a pre-deprivation, which means before you are deprived of your fundamental right to keep and bear arms, there has to be some sort of judicial process where you're found to be a danger, and only after that process, where you're found to be a danger, let's say, can you be deprived of a right. Here's what the court had to say. Check it out. "Certain other provisions of section 922, such as subsections one disarming convicted felons and subsections four disarming any person adjudicated as a mental defective or committed to a mental institution, involve some manner," listen carefully, "involve some manner of pre-deprivation process, pre-deprivation process, before an individual's Second Amendment rights are lost for that reason. They differ from section G3 here, and nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast down upon them." That's big because again, the court keeps going back, like they said in Raheem, if there is a process where you've been found to be a danger to yourself or to others, so too, and and that is the basis you'll be disarmed. But we would agree with that. If there's a trial and you know, you stab someone and you're a violent danger and you've been found to be a violent danger, well, you could be disarmed. We want that right. We don't want psychopathic crazies out there with weapons, uh, because that's no good for the Second Amendment community for a bunch of reasons we've covered elsewhere.
And Justice Gorsuch points out that it doesn't matter if they apply 1791 or 1868, because either way, the government loses because they cannot show there's any kind of historical tradition of disarming people who take some sort of illegal substance. That alone is simply not a basis for disarming anyone. Here's what the court had to say. "As in Bruen, we do not need to decide today whether courts should primarily rely on the prevailing understanding of an individual right when the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868 or when the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791. For reasons explored below, the government cannot establish that the Second Amendment at either point in time permitted anything like its prosecution here." Again, important information.
By the way, just as a side note, I see 0% chance that we're going to lose the Wolford versus Lopez case, which is the so-called vampire rule, the no-carry default rule out of Hawaii. I see no way that we, in the Second Amendment community, can win unanimously 9-0 the Hamidi case and somehow manage to lose Wolford. So, I think this is very good news that we're actually going to have two Second Amendment victories at the US Supreme Court this term. That is really amazing.
Now, let's carry on. The next very interesting thing, uh, that the Supreme Court had to say is they say that the Second Amendment applies, and this is a quote, "to all Americans." All Americans. That's the language the Supreme Court used here in Hamidi. That is significant, folks, because there are people out there that I disagree with that are trying to push this notion that illegal aliens are part of the people in the text of the Second Amendment, i.e., "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." And I've said, spend zero time on it. It is a stupid argument. There is no chance that the US Supreme Court is going to claim or find that illegal aliens are part of the people under the Second Amendment, that they have Second Amendment rights. And the fact that in this opinion, the Supreme Court made clear that the Second Amendment applies and protects the rights of all Americans, I do not think was random. I think that's quite significant.
Now, the next critical thing about this decision is very interesting. If you look at the concurrence, by the way, in addition to the majority opinion written by Justice Gorsuch, which really had seven justices 100% on board, there are two justices. Justice Alito and Justice Kagan agreed with the outcome, but they had a slightly different approach as to how they did the analysis. But I think it's sort of favorable to us. But what's interesting is that there is a concurrence by Justice Brown Jackson, no friend of the Second Amendment, uh, signed on by Justice Sotomayor, no friend of the Second Amendment. And in that concurrence, they say that under Bruen, we agree with the outcome. But then they go on to say, we, listen carefully, they say, "We don't agree with the methodology and the approach that Bruen takes." But nevertheless, to the extent that Bruen is the law of the land, we agree, Mr. Hamidi wins.
Now, what's significant, as I see it, is that Justice Brown Jackson and Justice Sotomayor say that while they disagree with the decision in Bruen, they do not say they disagree with the decision in Heller. And that's significant because Heller is the case that establishes the in common use test, i.e., the government can only ban a gun if it's deemed or found to be dangerous and unusual. And an ordinary arm that everyone in America owns is in common use and cannot be dangerous and unusual. Neither Brown Jackson nor Justice Sotomayor sought or referenced overturning Heller, and they said nothing about Heller being wrongly decided. So even if they're pushing to get rid of Bruen, they're not pushing to get rid of Heller, which speaks very highly and favorably, as I see it, to a potential huge win when it comes to the AR-15 ban cases, which I've been explaining I think is coming. And I think today's decision, Hamidi, speaks to that in a very favorable way.
All right, so there's a lot more things we can talk about in this opinion. I'm sure we will in the coming days, but the bottom line is this is cause for celebration. I really thought there was a great danger that we were going to lose this case because of the dynamic and the bad facts. But I'm happy to report, in this particular instance, bad facts did not make bad law. And that really is a miracle. But I think it speaks very well, and we should be very happy about that. The Supreme Court saw right through what game was being played here by bringing this case to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court really did, you know, push back upon and, uh, metaphorically slap down the Solicitor General of the United States. So this is very good news, folks. This is something we should all be happy about. And I think this is a good sign of where the US Supreme Court is going to be going with their Second Amendment jurisprudence moving forward. And if you're an anti-gunner today, uh, it is a very, very bad day for you, and a very depressing day for you. I'm kind of confident that that is the case.
So anyway, there you have it, folks. We'll talk more about this in the future. I appreciate you tuning in. Make sure you follow me on X, @FourBoxesDiner. Don't forget to subscribe, both YouTube and Rumble. And I'll talk to you again real soon here at the Four Boxes Diner. >> Orders up. Table 2A.