Minnesota has spent three years running an experiment most of the country is just starting. Adults over 21 may lawfully use cannabis under state law, and the Legislature said in so many words that doing so doesn’t cost them their firearms.
Federal law said the opposite. Not by implication. By statute, and by the form every buyer signs at a gun counter.
On June 18, 2026, the Supreme Court narrowed the federal side of that contradiction. It didn’t get rid of it, and the gap that’s left is where the risk lives.
The federal rule
18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3) makes it a federal crime for a person “who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance” to possess a firearm or ammunition that has moved in interstate commerce. That’s nearly every firearm.
There’s no exception for state legalization. There never was. “Unlawful” in that provision means unlawful under the federal Controlled Substances Act, and cannabis has been a Schedule I substance under that Act since 1970.
You run into this rule at the gun counter. ATF Form 4473, the form filled out for every purchase from a licensed dealer, asks in question 21.f whether the buyer is “an unlawful user of or addicted to marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or other controlled substance,” and tells you the answer follows federal law regardless of state law. A knowingly false answer is its own federal crime under 18 U.S.C. § 922(a)(6), completely separate from § 922(g)(3).
What Hemani decided
Ali Hemani was an unusually cooperative defendant. During a search of his family home, he turned over a firearm kept in the house, pointed agents to marijuana on the property, and agreed to an interview where he told them he used marijuana about every other day.
More than six months later, relying on that admission alone, the government charged him under § 922(g)(3). There was no evidence he was intoxicated when he had the gun, and no evidence he was a danger to himself or anyone else.
The Court affirmed the Fifth Circuit’s judgment. Justice Gorsuch wrote the opinion, joined by the Chief Justice and Justices Thomas, Sotomayor, Kavanaugh, Barrett, and Jackson. Justice Alito, joined by Justice Kagan, concurred in the judgment — so the result was unanimous. Justice Thomas and Justice Jackson (joined by Justice Sotomayor) each filed concurrences.
The holding:
The government’s prosecution of Mr. Hemani under §922(g)(3)’s unlawful user provision is inconsistent with the Second Amendment.
The government’s history argument leaned on founding-era laws disarming “habitual drunkards.” The Court didn’t buy the comparison. Those laws reached people who were practically incapacitated, while § 922(g)(3), as applied here, automatically disarms any regular user regardless of impairment or dangerousness.
Read the next paragraph before you rely on any of this
The Court went out of its way to say how little it was deciding. In its own words:
In many respects, this case is a narrow one. We do not address efforts to ban addicts . . . or those presently intoxicated, from possessing a firearm. . . . We do not even address whether the government could bring a prosecution under §922(g)(3) accompanied by individualized proof that the defendant’s use of marijuana (or any other drug) renders him a danger to himself or others. Or proof that a certain drug always renders its users dangerous because of its potency or for some other reason. None of those issues is before us and we do not pass on them either way.
That paragraph matters more than the headline.
§ 922(g)(3) was not struck down. This was an as-applied ruling. The statute is still on the books and still enforceable, and the Court expressly left open prosecutions backed by individualized proof of dangerousness, prosecutions involving addiction, and prosecutions involving present intoxication.
Form 4473 did not change. Nothing in Hemani deals with a false statement to a licensed dealer. Lying on the form is still a separate federal crime, and a decision about the Second Amendment limits of § 922(g)(3) doesn’t give anybody permission to give a false answer to question 21.f.
“A victory for the defendant . . . but little guidance for the lower courts” was how SCOTUSblog headlined its analysis, and that’s fair. What separates Hemani’s facts from a case the government can charge is now something district courts will work out one case at a time.
What Minnesota law actually says
This is where Minnesota really is ahead of the federal conversation, and where the mismatch gets concrete.
Minn. Stat. § 624.713, subd. 1, lists the people who may not possess firearms or ammunition in Minnesota. Clause (10)(iii) covers a person who “is an unlawful user of any controlled substance as defined in chapter 152” — and then adds this:
The use of medical cannabis flower or medical cannabinoid products by a patient enrolled in the registry program or the use of adult-use cannabis flower, adult-use cannabis products, lower-potency hemp edibles, or hemp-derived consumer products by a person 21 years of age or older does not constitute the unlawful use of a controlled substance under this item.
Read that carve-out closely, because it’s narrower than the headline makes it sound. It says cannabis use “does not constitute the unlawful use of a controlled substance under this item.” It’s a definitional carve-out from one item of one clause — the unlawful-user disqualifier. It doesn’t say a cannabis user is eligible under the whole statute.
It’s also state law only. It does nothing to federal charging decisions.
And the rest of § 624.713 still applies. The same subdivision separately bars firearm possession by:
- a person convicted in Minnesota or elsewhere of a misdemeanor or gross misdemeanor violation of chapter 152, unless three years have passed without another such violation (subject to the restoration provisions in subd. 4);
- a person who has ever been committed by judicial determination for treatment for habitual use of a controlled substance or marijuana; and
- a person committed to a treatment facility by a judicial determination that the person is chemically dependent as defined in Minn. Stat. § 253B.02.
That last one is easy to miss, and the cannabis carve-out doesn’t cover it. A Minnesotan with a chemical-dependency commitment in their history is still barred under state law, no matter what they consume today.
The federal ground has also moved, unevenly
While Hemani was pending, the scheduling picture changed. Partly.
A DEA order effective April 28, 2026 moved two categories from Schedule I to Schedule III: marijuana contained in an FDA-approved drug product, and marijuana subject to a state medical marijuana license. Adult-use marijuana — even under a state-legal program — stays in Schedule I, and so do bulk marijuana, extracts, and synthetically derived THC. A DEA administrative hearing on broader rescheduling began June 29, 2026, and any further change would take months and a final rule.
Look at what that does in Minnesota, which runs both programs. A patient in the medical cannabis registry and a 30-year-old buying at a licensed adult-use dispensary are treated exactly the same by Minn. Stat. § 624.713. Under the federal schedules after April 28, 2026, they’re not in the same position at all.
Whether that difference changes the § 922(g)(3) analysis for a registry patient is unsettled. Schedule III is not the same as lawful — possession without a valid prescription is still unlawful use of a controlled substance — and the statute reaches “any controlled substance,” not only Schedule I. This one is wide open, it’s being argued in real cases right now, and nobody should treat it as resolved.
Where that leaves you
If you’re a Minnesotan who uses cannabis legally under state law and owns a firearm:
- Minnesota doesn’t disqualify you on that basis. The statute says so in plain terms.
- Federal law still has § 922(g)(3), and Hemani narrowed how it applies without repealing it.
- The gun counter is the sharpest edge. Question 21.f follows federal law, and a knowingly false answer is its own crime that Hemani doesn’t touch.
- The people most exposed are the ones the Court expressly declined to protect: anyone the government can describe as addicted, presently intoxicated, or individually dangerous — and anyone whose case involves a firearm carried outside the home instead of kept in it.
Two governments have made two different decisions about the same conduct, and the person standing between them eats the difference. Hemani moved that line. It didn’t erase it.
If you’re facing a federal firearms charge, a state firearms-eligibility question, a permit denial, or a revocation involving cannabis, the answer turns on details no article can give you. Send us a message or call 612-470-6529.
Sources: United States v. Hemani, 608 U. S. 772 (2026) (Gorsuch, J.), No. 24–1234, decided June 18, 2026 (Thomas, J., concurring; Jackson, J., concurring, joined by Sotomayor, J.; Alito, J., concurring in the judgment, joined by Kagan, J.); 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3), § 922(a)(6); Minn. Stat. § 624.713, subd. 1 (Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes); ATF Form 4473, question 21.f, and ATF Form 4473 revision materials; Schedules of Controlled Substances: Rescheduling of Food and Drug Administration Approved Products Containing Marijuana From Schedule I to Schedule III, 91 Fed. Reg. 22714 (Apr. 28, 2026) (final rule; DEA Doc. No. 2026-08176), cited by the Court at Hemani, slip op. 17; Schedules of Controlled Substances: Rescheduling of Marijuana, 91 Fed. Reg. 22777 (Apr. 28, 2026) (notice of hearing; DEA Doc. No. 2026-08177) (hearing on broader rescheduling commencing June 29, 2026); Minn. Stat. § 253B.02. This article is general commentary on published decisions, statutes, and regulations, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney–client relationship. Nothing here should be understood as guidance on whether any particular person may lawfully possess or acquire a firearm, or on how to answer any federal form. No outcome is promised or implied.