A federal judge in Delaware denied Hunter Biden’s bid to throw out his felony gun charges on Thursday, rejecting arguments from the president’s son that the federal prohibition on owning guns while using illegal drugs is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment.
Separately, a federal appeals court panel ruled against Biden earlier Thursday in another bid to have the charges against him tossed.
The two decisions appear to clear the way for his case to head to trial on June 3, though his defense team can still pursue further appeals.
Special counsel David Weiss alleges that Biden bought a gun in October 2018, a time when he was frequently using crack cocaine. Biden has spoken publicly about his struggles with drug addiction.
Federal law bars people who use illegal drugs from buying guns. Biden’s team, however, argued in court that this ban violates the Second Amendment.
They pointed to a recent Supreme Court decision, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which constrained the government’s power to regulate gun ownership.
Judge Maryellen Noreika, however, was unpersuaded.
Norieka, who was appointed by then-President Donald Trump, noted that while the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals found the drug-user ban to be unconstitutional in one situation — specifically, as applied to a habitual marijuana user — that court explicitly emphasized that its decision was quite narrow.
And she wrote that the “vast majority” of district courts who have reviewed the drug-user ban in the post-Bruen world have upheld it as constitutional.
