How a conservative court ruling could save Hunter Biden

Irony alert: A misguided ruling from the conservative-dominated Supreme Court — a decision that President Biden has said “contradicts both common sense and the Constitution” — might save Hunter Biden from the gun charges just filed against him.
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Last year, in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the court upended its approach to gun rights, saying that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms permits only those gun restrictions that have a basis in “history and tradition.” That blinkered interpretation has set off a flurry of challenges to existing gun laws in the lower courts as judges have been forced to scour colonial-era statutes for analogies to modern-day regulations.

In Hunter Biden’s case, that means finding historical antecedents for the federal law that prohibits those who use illegal drugs from purchasing or possessing firearms.

His lawyers have signaled their intention to use the high court’s ruling in Bruen as a basis for challenging the charges.

“Our response to the charge in court will point out that the United States Department of Justice, which is supposed to protect the constitutional rights of all Americans, by bringing its firearm charge, is disregarding the rulings of the Supreme Court and the Fifth Circuit and is seeking to punish Mr. Biden for exercising a constitutional right these courts have stated he has,” Biden’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, told me.

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