Gorsuch Makes Amazing Point Regarding ‘Habitual Drinkers’ in Early America

In the Supreme Court case regarding gun ownership for marijuana use, the government’s position mostly hinges on laws that took guns from drunks. The argument is that habitual drinkers weren’t safe to own guns; the Founding Fathers understood that, and thus disarmed them. Under the Rahimi standard of historic analogs not having to be a one-to-one analog, that should be enough to justify disarming marijuana users.

Of course, from my experience, people who just use marijuana are more likely to be a danger to the snack food aisle at the Circle K than anything else, but my experience isn’t super extensive, admittedly.

However, on the issue of habitual drinkers, Justice Neil Gorsuch had some thoughts worth discussing.

Justice Neil Gorsuch spent a portion of the Supreme Court’s oral arguments this week exploring what a “habitual drunkard” is as part of a case centered on whether a drug user is allowed to own a gun.

Gorsuch questioned a Department of Justice lawyer on how gun restrictions for habitual drunkards in early American history compared to today’s law restricting drug users from owning guns. The DOJ was required to point to a strong historical comparison to prove the modern law was constitutional, and it chose to use the founding-era laws about habitual drunkards.

“The American Temperance Society, back in the day, said eight shots of whiskey a day only made you an occasional drunkard,” Gorsuch said.

A habitual drunkard, Gorsuch said, had to “double that.”

The conservative justice pointed to the Founding Fathers’ drinking habits to convey his skepticism about the DOJ’s argument that a habitual drunkard was similar to a modern-day drug user and that both were worthy of being disarmed. 

“John Adams took a tankard of hard cider with his breakfast every day. James Madison reportedly drank a pint of whiskey every day. Thomas Jefferson said he wasn’t much of a user of alcohol. He only had three or four glasses of wine a night,” Gorsuch said.

“Are they habitual drunkards who would be properly disarmed for life under your theory?” Gorsuch said.

Now, let’s understand that by today’s standards, eight shots of whiskey is a whole lot of drinking, and one should probably get help. Yeah, I’ve got more than eight bottles of bourbon right behind me as I write this, but I don’t drink it as the Founding Fathers did.

We’ve probably all seen the receipt from the going-away party back in the day, where a handful of men drank like the entire United States Navy on a three-day liberty in New Orleans, so this isn’t really an exaggeration.

They drank. A lot.

And yet, Gorsuch’s question of whether they should have been disarmed is interesting.

Under current interpretations of the law, someone who uses marijuana once a week is probably considered a habitual user. Hell, I’d probably agree with that, even. Yet if we’re using historic analogs, and the Founding Fathers were drinking a whole lot more than most of us would find acceptable today, then where is the line in this day and age?

Of course, the DOJ argues that the laws were about habitual drunkards, not habitual drinkers, who were prohibited, but I kind of think that’s the point here.

How do we define the term? Is this like pornography, where we know it when we see it? I’ve never been comfortable with a standard like that, if for no other reason than anyone can say they see it when they don’t.

Our Founding Fathers were heavy drinkers by the standards of our day, but where is the line for marijuana use? How much does it take to make someone the equivalent of a habitual drunkard versus a habitual drinker? The government hasn’t ever provided a limit, so far as I’m aware, and therein lies a lot of the problem here.

Just some of the many problems, admittedly, but still a lot of the problem.

Editor’s Note: The radical left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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