Hunter Biden’s conviction on federal gun charges Tuesday ignited a feverish debate, including among conservatives, over the constitutionality of the law he was found guilty of violating.
Thanks to a 2022 Supreme Court ruling, courts are taking a new look at the federal government’s main gun control law that bars felons, illegal immigrants, dishonorably discharged veterans, fugitives and unlawful drug users, among others, from possessing a firearm.
Hunter Biden’s lawyers already raised the issue in an appeal to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals before the trial, and were told the issue was premature and would have to wait for a final judgment from the trial court.
On Tuesday, the jury delivered its verdict in the case, finding Biden guilty of three charges stemming from his 2018 purchase of a Colt revolver, including being an unlawful drug user when he bought the gun and lying about his drug use at the time of the purchase.
The issue has divided conservatives, many of whom were torn between decrying what they see as overburdensome gun laws on the one hand, and a grandstanding President Biden on the other.
“Hunter might deserve to be in jail for something, but purchasing a gun is not it,” Rep. Thomas Massie, Kentucky Republican, said on social media. “There are millions of marijuana users who own guns in this country, and none of them should be in jail for purchasing or possessing a firearm against current laws.”
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Erich Pratt, senior vice president at Gun Owners of America, said the law is bad but Hunter Biden deserves the conviction.
“Joe Biden has done everything in his power to weaponize his administration against guns, gun owners, and dealers, and it’s incredibly ironic to now see his own son caught up in these efforts,” Mr. Pratt told The Washington Times in a statement. “Gun Owners of America believes the underlying law is unconstitutionally broad, but so long as it remains on the books, Hunter deserved no special treatment or mercy.”
Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, said of Hunter Biden’s case, “This one’s a tough one for me.”
He said the gun control law’s reach in barring nonviolent criminals from possessing weapons is too broad, but he said Biden’s drug use makes this a trickier call.
But Mr. Gottlieb said Biden lying on the firearm background check was clearly a crime.
“Lying on the form, itself, is a whole different crime than being in possession of the gun or being allowed to buy a gun,” he said.
He also saw irony in the son of the president being convicted.
“President Biden and his family have been gun control supporters and now they’re caught in their own web of the laws they supported,” Mr. Gottlieb said.
After the jury verdict, Abbe Lowell, Biden’s lawyer, signaled his intent to “vigorously pursue all the legal challenges available to Hunter.”
Among the issues he’s raised already are that Biden faced selective prosecution; that special counsel David Weiss was improperly appointed and cannot legally pursue the case, and that the Gun Control Act can’t bar Biden’s conduct.
Mr. Lowell says the 2022 Supreme Court ruling, the Bruen case, rewrote the framework for gun laws and implicitly struck down much of the prohibition against drug users possessing a weapon.
In that case, the justices said gun control laws are generally only valid if they would have been countenanced by the people who wrote and ratified the Second Amendment.
Courts are currently pondering challenges to the law from felons, illegal immigrants, drug users and people facing domestic violence protection orders.
One such case is already pending before the Supreme Court, with the justices slated to make a ruling this month.
Hunter Biden has argued that after Bruen, the only valid gun controls on people are for those who could be considered dangers to society.
His lawyers said Biden doesn’t fall into that category just because he may have been a drug user.
“Nobody testified that Mr. Biden ever showed the weapon to anyone, much less brandished the weapon in any threatening or offensive manner,” Mr. Lowell argued to the trial court.
At trial, Mr. Lowell said Biden was not actually an unlawful drug user at the time he bought the weapon and during the 11 days he owned it. They also said that, although he owned the gun, he never really possessed it, including never loading or firing the gun.
Indeed, his lawyers said it was never handled after purchase until Hallie Biden, his sister-in-law-turned-girlfriend, took the weapon and dumped it in the garbage at a local market.
Mr. Weiss, the U.S. attorney in Delaware who was belatedly appointed special counsel in order to pursue the case against Biden, argued that his case falls squarely in the founding era’s “tradition of disarming persons whose possession of firearms presents a public safety threat.”
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.