Hunter Biden’s attorneys filed a motion in a U.S. District Court on Monday, seeking to have gun charges against him dismissed in light of the Supreme Court’s Bruen (2022) decision.
On June 23, 2022, Breitbart News reported the issuance of the Bruen decision, noting that it struck down New York’s proper cause requirement for concealed carry permit issuance.
Bruen also set a path for Second Amendment jurisprudence moving forward, requiring that in cases involving challenges to gun control, courts are to weigh the controls by looking for historical precedents in American history and tradition rather than in claims that the controls serve a specific purpose. It is in appealing to this aspect of Bruen that Biden’s attorneys seek a dismissal of charges.
Biden’s attorneys pointed to United States v. Daniels, a case which a panel of United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit panel decided against the federal ban on firearm possession by unlawful drug users. The panel pointed to Bruen in rendering its decision.
Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, makes a statement to the press outside the U.S. Capitol about testifying publicly to the House Oversight and Accountability Committee on Wednesday, December 13, 2023. Biden’s defense attorney Abbe Lowell is pictured left. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty)
The three charges Biden faces are tied to buying a gun while an illegal drug use, allegedly lying about the drug use an ATF form 4473 in order to acquire the firearm, and “[causing] the seller (a holder of a federal firearms license) to maintain a record of this false answer” in selling the gun.
The attorneys point to Daniels and argue that if Biden cannot be denied gun possession for “past drug use,” the other charges become moot as well:
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. 18 U.S.C. § 922(a)(6). 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.
On June 1, 2023, Breitbart News noted that Biden’s attorneys would be using a pro-Second Amendment defense to help their client overcome any gun charges that might be brought against him.
The motion seeks a dismissal of charges in United States v. Biden, No. 1:23-cr-00061-MN in the United State District Court for the District of Delaware.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and he holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
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