It looks as if we’re going to get that Hunter Biden v. Joe Biden Second Amendment case after all. Here’s Axios:
The gun charges against Hunter Biden are “unconstitutional under the Second Amendment” and the case should also be dismissed as a collapsed plea agreement still grants him immunity, his attorney said in federal court filings Monday.
Specifically:
Lowell also addressed Hunter Biden’s indictment that alleges he illegally owned a gun as a drug user and that he lied on a federal firearm purchase form, arguing that recent court rulings meant the charges were unconstitutional.
“Because persons protected by the Second Amendment can no longer be denied gun ownership due simply to past drug use — a practice inconsistent with this nation’s historical tradition on firearm regulation —any false statement by Mr. Biden concerning his status as having used a controlled substance no longer concerns ‘any fact material to the lawfulness of the sale’ of a firearm,” he wrote.
“Quite simply, asking about Mr. Biden’s status as a user of a controlled status is constitutionally irrelevant to whether he can be denied his Second Amendment right to gun ownership.”
By “recent court rulings,” Axios means Bruen — a case that President Biden loathes. As Hunter Biden’s lawyer notes, the standard laid out in Bruen is that any law that is “inconsistent with this nation’s historical tradition on firearm regulation” should be held to be presumptively unconstitutional. Because neither the Founding generation nor the Reconstruction generation imposed a total prohibition on drug users purchasing or possessing firearms, Hunter Biden’s team suggests, their client cannot be prosecuted for having refused to divulge his addiction when he bought a gun. Historically, there have been many laws that temporarily governed possession of firearms — if, for example, you were obviously drunk, you could be disarmed — but there have been none that linked generalized drug use with the loss of the right to keep and bear arms. As such, Hunter Biden’s lawyers conclude, “asking about Mr. Biden’s status as a user of a controlled status is constitutionally irrelevant to whether he can be denied his Second Amendment right to gun ownership,” and the case must fall.
I think this argument is strong. But President Biden does not. As a matter of fact, Joe Biden thinks that the framework that made this defense possible “contradicts both common sense and the Constitution, and should deeply trouble us all.” It is going to be extremely awkward for Joe Biden to see his son fighting a prosecution that has been brought by his own Department of Justice on legal grounds that he has argued make America less safe and ought to be reversed. It is going to be even more awkward if that case, Biden v. United States, ends up providing a key practical example of Bruen‘s scope. For decades, Joe Biden has been known in part for his enthusiasm for stricter gun-control and stricter drug laws. To have the joint at which the two meet weakened by his own son would be nothing short of bizarre.
On Gun-Control, It’s Now Hunter Biden v. Joe Biden
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12.12.2023
It looks as if we’re going to get that Hunter Biden v. Joe Biden Second Amendment case after all. Here’s Axios:
The gun charges against Hunter Biden are “unconstitutional under the Second Amendment” and the case should also be dismissed as a collapsed plea agreement still grants him immunity, his attorney said in federal court filings Monday.
Specifically:
Lowell also addressed Hunter Biden’s indictment that alleges he illegally owned a gun as a drug user and that he lied on a federal firearm purchase form, arguing that recent court rulings meant the charges were unconstitutional.
“Because persons protected by the Second Amendment can no longer be denied gun ownership due simply to past drug use — a practice inconsistent with this........
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