Hunter Biden’s lawyers will use the Second Amendment as a legal defense against potential gun-related charges.
Hunter Biden may have lied about his history of drug use when filling out ATF Form 4473 dated March 25, 2018, for a gun purchase. Lying on the form is a felony. The punishment for false answers on that form includes fines of up to $250,000 and/or up to 15 years of imprisonment.
United States Attorney for the District of Delaware David Weiss is the prosecutor investigating Hunter Biden for potential tax and gun violations. If Weiss recommends gun charges against Hunter Biden — charges on which Attorney General Merrick Garland must sign off — Hunter Biden’s defense lawyer, Christopher Clark, would use the second amendment as a defense, the New York Times reported. A person familiar with the private discussions confirmed the legal strategy to Politico.
The Gun Control Act of 1968 prohibits illegal drug users from owning guns. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) says the law applies to those who have admitted to the use of illicit drugs in the past 12 months before purchasing a gun.
But the law is under legal challenge. Last year, the Supreme Court expanded upon long-held jurisprudence about the Second Amendment. In New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the Supreme Court ruled that gun restrictions must be consistent with those of the founding era.
The Supreme Court recently clarified the scope of the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms in N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, making clear that the Second Amendment must be interpreted according to the original public meaning of its words, just like other provisions in the Bill of Rights.
The Supreme Court’s ruling sparked dozens of lawsuits across the country, which also throws Hunter Biden’s defense strategy up for debate, given that lower court rulings conflict about whether current gun laws reflect the intent of the founding era.
Hunter Biden’s legal defense could ironically invoke a Supreme Court decision that his father claimed was a travesty and an affront to “common sense and the Constitution.”
“This ruling contradicts both common sense and the Constitution, and should deeply trouble us all,” President Joe Biden said last year.
“Under Bruen, the federal law forbidding people with drug problems from purchasing a firearm will be reviewed by looking to see if there was any similar restriction when the Second Amendment was adopted,” explained Breitbart News senior legal contributor Ken Klukowski, whose law practice includes litigating Second Amendment matters. “In 1791, there were certain restrictions on various sorts of criminals and people with mental problems obtaining weapons, and the legal burden would be on the Justice Department to prove to a federal court how the current prohibition fits within that historical tradition.”
“However, even if a court ruled that the restriction is unconstitutional, it is still a crime to lie on a Form 4473,” Klukowski continued. “The way laws like that are challenged is a person filed a lawsuit to challenge it, explaining to the court that they wish to purchase a firearm but cannot do so under that statute, and asking a court to strike it down so they could purchase the gun.”
“So if Hunter lied on a Form 4473, his lawyers need to convince a court that requiring a person to fill out Form 4473 is itself unconstitutional,” Klukowski concluded.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.
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