Hunter Biden could find himself at the cutting edge of the fight to strengthen the Second Amendment. The president’s son is the target of a Justice Department investigation of a gun purchase in 2018, when he said he was regularly using crack cocaine. Federal law bans drug users from owning guns. The constitutionality of that law — like many other restrictions on gun ownership — is in question after a decision the Supreme Court handed down last year. His lawyers have told Justice Department officials that, if their client is charged with the gun crime, they will challenge the law under the Second Amendment, Politico reports. That could turn a case fraught with political consequences into a high-profile showdown over the right to bear arms.
The dispute could put conservative gun-rights enthusiasts, who typically criticize the Biden family, in alignment with the president’s son. Federal prosecutors finalizing the Hunter Biden investigation. David Weiss, the U.S. Attorney for Delaware who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, is leading the probe. Weiss is reported to be examining potential tax crimes related to undeclared income, as well as Hunter Biden’s purchase of a handgun in October 2018. Biden filled out a federal form on which he allegedly avowed that he was not “an unlawful user of, or addicted to” any “controlled substance,” but according to Biden’s 2021 memoir, he frequently used crack cocaine at the time. “I was smoking crack every 15 minutes,” he wrote. The Gun Control Act of 1968 prohibits unlawful drug users from possessing firearms. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives says this ban applies to people who have admitted to using illegal drugs in the 12 months before buying a gun.
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