Did you know that a federal law strips gun rights from anyone who uses marijuana with no proof of danger required? Monday, March 2nd, the Supreme Court hears oral arguments about whether this law violates the Second Amendment. I'm Ryan Weir, and this is the High Court Report. Today, I want to deep dive into this case. United States versus Hemani. I'm joined today by Adeel Bashir to help us break down this case. Adeel works as federal, public and community defenders sentencing resource counsel. A deal represents people charged with federal crimes. He's encountered this statute dozens of times while defending clients. in his individual capacity, not in his capacity as a writer of an amicus brief on behalf of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Adeel's views are his own and not that of any organization. Hi Adeel, how are you doing today?

Hey Ryan. thanks so much for having me. You're doing great. It's a lovely day here in Tampa, Florida where I live.

Great. We're so excited to have you on. Let's just dive right in. Give us your 60 second take. What most stands out to you about this case?

Well this is, this is really gonna, I think, shape up to be one of the blockbusters of this, term because it's really the confluence of two doctrines that have been dominating, Supreme Court practice over the last, I would say decade or decade and a half. And that really has to do with, the individual right, to possess a firearm under the Second Amendment and the right to self-defense, and really enshrining that as a individual, right? a right that's on par with the First Amendment and the Fourth Amendment. And then on the other hand, is a strain of statutory interpretation law that. Really just dives into this idea of what can the government prosecute, and do. Are we a nation of laws or are we a nation of too many laws? and really is almost every single action or every day, mundane actions not only subjecting us to criminal penalties, but stripping of us, of our, You know, enshrined constitutional rights, whether it be First Amendment, fourth Amendment, and in this case Second Amendment. So there's a lot at stake here, for what seems at the surface to be, you know, a case about, you know, two things that Americans, quite love their guns and their weed.

That's the perfect setup. The legal fight we're about to unpack starts with a pretty straightforward set of facts. Here's what brought this case to the Supreme Court. Federal law makes it a crime punishable by up to 15 years in prison for any drug user to possess a firearm. And now I'm gonna read from the statute itself because I want to get the text right. It is a felony under federal law to possess a firearm if the person. An unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance Adeel, walk us through what this means, what the text actually says, and where the government and Hemani draw completely different conclusions about the very same words.

Yeah, so this is, one of the most, prosecuted offenses in the federal Code. it's a statute which you quoted from 9 22 G, and it has several subsections. The most common. Of which is someone who has a prior conviction for a felony offense. And this is a less often used provision, but it falls within, as you quoted in your text, uh, anyone who either is an unlawful user or addicted to any controlled substance and controlled substances here are defined under. the federal, controlled substance act. So cross references, that act contains five schedules. I think most people are familiar with kind of the common drugs that are prohibited. You know, you're talking your marijuana, cocaine, heroin, um, you know, fentanyl, things of that like, Those schedules are pretty broad, and when you start looking at them, they include things like cough medicine, steroids, Xanax, and the one that's at issue here. marijuana. Um, you know, if, if you've been following the news, you've seen a lot. talking about the current administration rescheduling, which really just means moving it from, certain, higher, restrictions under schedule one to potential schedule three. The important thing for the audience is, um, all of those drugs are controlled substances. So this statute says if you are a user. an unlawful user or addicted to, any controlled substance, then you are not only prohibited from possessing a firearm you could potentially face up to 15 years in prison, for, being in possession of that firearm. So. The first thing right off the bat, when we're looking at this case, is this law constitutional under the second Amendment? So let's just take it a step back. what does the Second Amendment say, over the last, decade or so, but really in the last couple years? the Supreme Court has made it clear that the Second Amendment not only protects an individual's right to possess a firearm, but, unlike, years past where the analysis and looking at a law of whether or not it's constitutional or not would depend on, they'll like to call means-end scrutiny as, as the name suggest. do the ends justify the means. it used to be, the government could say like, look. Somebody uses drugs or they're addicted to drugs, we have a, a good reason to keep firearms out of their hands. Is this law a good way of doing it? Is it valid? what the Supreme Court has said is, no, no, no. That's not the way we're gonna analyze this anymore. The relevant question actually is, is, is this law consistent with history, the text of how the Second Amendment was understood at the time of the founding. and is it consistent with the way in which the founders restricted someone's right to possess a firearm? Well, that requires a lot of us to put on, our time machine hats and go back. So, bringing it back to the framing here, of, what's really going on in this case. you have this, historical inquiry that needs to happen. And before you can even do that, first thing you need to realize is well before we can say, does the statute match with history and tradition? Or is it an analogous to history and tradition? You have to figure out what does the statute even mean. And what does it say? So if you look at the way the government, who is the petitioner in this case, they lost in the court below. They're the ones who brought the case to the Supreme Court and got granted. What they're saying is, look, when you look at that unlawful user language, what it really means is someone who's habitually or regularly using a controlled substance. and that is similar to in the past, how. the founders would restrict, let's say someone who was habitually drunk or a criminal vagrant, or somebody who was disturbing the piece of unsound mind. Those are the type of people that were risky and dangerous. We wouldn't want them to have firearms, so we took them away. On the other hand, you have Mr. Hemani coming saying, let's stop here for a second. The language of the statute says, unlawful user. Where did this word habitual come from? Where did this word regularly come from? And, why are we even talking about addicted to, this prosecution is what they like to call as applied. It's as, constituted to Mr. Hemani's conduct. And here the only thing he's, accused of doing is admitting to smoking marijuana about every other day or so. So the first thing respondent is saying is. And I would pose the question back, you know, when someone says you're a user of something, well, what does that mean? does that mean, anytime I have used, you know, I used a credit card that I never, used because I needed to just purchase something. I wanted the points on it. am I a user of that credit card? Well, maybe to some. Is it the same thing as being addicted to, is it regular use? am I a user of, I had green tea recently. I think the last time I had green tea was maybe in the first Bush administration. But it was hot, it was a little cold. I decided to partake, am I a user of green tea? We don't know. and that's really what respondent is saying is look, when we're talking about constitutional rights in particular and criminal laws. you need to provide clear notice and fair notice as to what the statute is really implicating. So, just to say someone is an unlawful user is far too broad, far too far, too vague. And even if we were to narrow it down in the way the government was saying, Point two, and this is really where a lot of the battle between the parties, comes into play is, well. How sufficiently analogous does it have to be to history? on the government side, they've made the point that. People that were habitually drunk or, vagrants, that were causing disturbances. Those are the types of people that, um, you you could temporarily either in prison or take away some, of their use of firearms 'cause they would pose some special risk of misuse. Whereas, Mr. Hemani would say. No, that doesn't happen when you're just a user. You have to demonstrate that you're actively, presently under the influence. So it could be the case maybe on certain substances that could alter your mind or in certain instances, of, contemporaneous where you're using. Think about drunk driving, you know, where you're actively doing something and operating a vehicle or, you know, I think about medicines where it says do not operate heavy machinery. They probably also. Could write and don't shoot your gun while you're doing this. you know, those might be instances, but not Mr. Hemani. Mr. Hemani just said he smokes marijuana every other day. They don't really know when he smokes it. Does he do it right before he goes to sleep? Um, you know, in this case, the, the record evidence doesn't show that he ever possessed his firearm while he was, smoking marijuana. the gun was safely secured away. in fact, he was being investigated. you know, kinda the atmospherics of this case was on potential, terrorism charges that never materialized. and he actually turned, you know, told a law enforcement about his firearm. and turned it over. So there really wasn't any, allegation or indication that he ever did anything improper, with his firearm. and so, you know, it's really be coming down to a battle and a landscape of what is the statute even saying? Is it giving us definition? And when we're looking back in time, you know, how closely does this analogy have to follow? the government wants to go broader and say. We just, we don't need an exact fit. and the Supreme Court has said as much, but this is close enough and it's kind of analogous. Whereas respondent is saying, look, we have rights at stake. If we were talking about the First Amendment, if we were talking about the the Fifth Amendment, you know, we would be demanding more of what the statute would say. and if you look at some of the other categories under 9 22 G, Whether it's the felon possession statute or otherwise, they at least have some clear definitions of what it means. You know, there's an adjudication. there was a, a term, a case from a couple terms ago. Rahimi was the name of the case. in that instance, if you were under a, temporary restraining order, you could be, prosecuted for possessing a firearm. Well, there a judge has put you under a temporary restraining order. There's not really that good of an argument that you're unaware of that fact. and the last thing I'll say is, when we're talking about this statute as well, you have two aspects, unlawful user or addicted to, and there's a principle in the law that when you're using different terms, there's presumably. there could be some overlap, but they're meant to have distinct meanings. maybe being addicted to a substance or being declared addicted to could mean one thing. But, the analogy I like to use is, if you ask my wife, I'm addicted to football, but if you ask my kids, I don't watch enough, what does that mean? I think for the audience is an important question. ask yourselves right now, who you know and who your friends know. Think about all the controlled substances that come to mind. your adderalls, your Xanax, you're using, certain medicines without a proper prescription. It's cold and flu season. Maybe you've taken some. antibiotics of some sort or cough medicine. maybe, you're some of the folks I like to see at the gym. I don't know if they have prescription for everything they're taking. They look good, but, I question some of that sometimes. and then ask yourself, well. Are every single one of those people prohibited from having a firearm? When, where, how. And that's really what the Supreme Court has to grapple with. and they're gonna have to make a lot of tough decisions here, not only in explaining how we're gonna do this analysis, but just how broadly or how narrow early they want to go.

That was a very helpful explainer.

Yeah.

Let's go to the habitual user side of things, because when I read the statute. As you mentioned, nowhere in it does it say habitual or regular user. And so it seems like the government is reading into the statute, the term of habit, and is that what, what's your interpretation of what that and just because that's an issue that dominated the briefing, do you think that holds sway with the justices? I read an amicus brief that mentioned what you mentioned about how habit and addicted to, they seem to be very similar words, although perhaps, I'm not sure if there's different dictionary definitions or not, but seems like unlawful user is for the parties. That issue here, that that phrasing alone seems to be too broad for them to even take to the Supreme Court.

Right. So a couple things to say there, and I think the way to set this off is since we're dealing with a constitutional question. There's another provision in the law. You'll see there's a lot of intersections of the law coming, and there's a provision of the law that's the constitutional avoidance doctrine, where the court, if they can give an interpretation to a statute to avoid saying a statute is unconstitutional or void for vagueness in this instance, or fails to provide fair notice or due process, they're gonna try to do that. if you're one of those people that likes to really, nerd out on statutory interpretation. I always like to call it a choose your own adventure, form of the law because, everything that you've pointed out. in the world of statutory interpretation, there's always a counterpoint. So, when we look at this word use, the Supreme Court has interpreted numerous times and has described that word to be elastic. meaning that depending on its context, it can take on a lot of meanings. So if you go to a dictionary. Use means something to avail oneself of or of the like. But you know, there's lots of tools that you would use. one of which is, well, let's look at its surrounding text and it says addicted to. So, is it similar to addicted to, there's some principles that say we try to ascribe words that are close together to similar meaning. Then there's other principles that say, well. They can't mean the exact same thing because we presume Congress doesn't, is not redundant or whatnot. there are a lot of presumptions, you know, for the audience. I think you'll, set aside cynicism. You know, when we do a lot of these exercises, we don't try to, read into the mind of, of, of what Congress was doing. I mean, you know, in some instances it could have just been some staffer trying to, add some rhetorical flare, but nonetheless, the exercise that we'll do is that Congress doesn't do that. No, that's that, you know, we're far too sophisticated of a country to go along, those lines. So, you know, there's gonna be some principles and, you know, mostly every court of appeals that's had to deal with this question over the years. it's come up number of times. What does it mean to be a user? They've said. It has to have some form of at least regularity, or when we say unlawful use. When we mean use here, we don't mean just single use that I think both parties agree with. The question really is, well, what's that line? and where the notice question comes in is how do you know when you crossed that threshold? there's an important, caveat to the statute, in a case from a number of years ago actually one of my own cases, by the name of Rahe, that said under, these, prohibited person statutes under 922(g). not only does the government have to show that you belong to one of these statuses, unlawfully and present in the country, in this instance an unlawful user. the person has to have men's rea a knowledge that they belong to that category. So. on the one hand respondent will say, well, look Mr. Hemani, we asked him if he smoked marijuana, and he said, yeah, every other day he knows he's a user. on the other hand, Mr. Hemani would say, well, you just asked me a question. I don't know the legal definition of a user. maybe I live in a jurisdiction where marijuana uses is legal. Obvious is illegal under federal law, but it's legal under state law, perhaps I'm not as familiar with, all of the codes or I misunderstand my prescription or, and you know, that notice question and when you cross that threshold, is very important. The petitioner in this case, the government, makes kind of an interesting argument. and I think they've drawn on. some of the cues from previous Supreme Court cases, that have said this is not a permanent restriction. You're an unlawful user. All you gotta do is give up your habit and, voila. You got your Second Amendment right back. There's a lot of questions about how that would work, and how that would, work out. and one thing that I think is also really important to stress here is in years past, eons ago, it used to be a somewhat valid argument to the US Supreme Court. If the government could get up and say, look, you're talking about the over breath problem here, and we could potentially be saying anyone who uses any controlled substance. 'cause that's what the statute says. That could mean anything from marijuana to Xanax, to Adderall to cough medicine. we went and prosecute those cases. That, that's crazy. that argument does not tend to fly anymore. for reasons that may be self-evident, that, we've actually seen examples of lots of prosecutions, and trust in prosecutorial discretion is less and less, significant. So, you know, and hopefully you check out the oral arguments. something the Supreme Court loves to do, is really test the limits of both sides, theories with hypotheticals. So there will undoubtedly be instances of, well tell us, would this count? Would this be closer? or would this be too far? the cases that are extreme, someone who's, every day, shooting heroin or, mixing multiple drugs or whatnot, even Mr. Hemani says, look, those may be different cases. That's not what we're dealing up here. The government's gonna try to really lean into that direction, whereas Mr. Hemani is gonna look at and say, and you'll look at a lot of the amicus briefs you've referenced. you can look at the statistics in this case or just go to Pew Research on the otherwise. Large majorities of Americans own firearms. The number of Americans that have, smoked marijuana, either in a weekly basis or, taken, a substance that would be prohibited under federal law, is surprisingly high. It's probably much higher than what people think. But it, you know, if you just look at your everyday colloquial life, You'll probably realize. Well, yeah. I mean of the, of five people I know there's at least one I know that is doing something that, Isn't out of the ordinary or otherwise, um, are we really risking all of those people's Second Amendment rights? And I think that's gonna be really at the forefront of the Supreme Court's mind. And it's gonna be incumbent on the parties to battle that out. the battle between, trust us, we are, we're not going to go that far versus, you know, we're talking about constitutional rights here. Trust is really not the currency in which the Constitution, delivers in, it's about rights being clearly defined and before you can, take them away from people.

Great.

Yeah.

Since you brought up the oral arguments, let's turn our attention to there. For another issue that's percolating, in this case, about Congress and their determination about dangerous people. And that has to do with the Second Amendment, and Congress can make class-wide determinations about whether group of people who use controlled substances and who possess a firearm, they're categorically dangerous. Talk to me about how that will play out in the oral arguments.

you raise a really excellent point because the Supreme Court, when we're talking about this historical inquiry and looking at the ways in which the founding era restricted rights, in its most recent Second Amendment case, you know, left open this question. About whether and to what extent Congress can make these kind of legislative determinations, about who is risky and who is dangerous. Because there's a general proposition, and I don't think this is controversial amongst probably all justices, that, if you are a dangerous person, you can have your firearm, rights restricted at least temporarily. The rubber hits the road when we try to figure out, well, how do we define what it means to be dangerous? and that's where that deference to the legislature becomes really important because we end up creeping very close back into this means end world. Right. If you can imagine, the analogy I've been giving, some folks is, just imagine yourself a congressional hearing, in a week or so that says, anybody that went to. You know, a COVID rally or a Black Lives matter rally, you know, presumptively dangerous and risky people. and the legislature may that determination, how much stock or wait are we gonna put into it just because Congress says that, or what if you have on the flip side, you went to a January 6th hearing, or you've gone to, a Turning Points USA rally or something of the, like, you know. Think of these hypotheticals on any side of the political spectrum, are we really just leaving it to the legislature to determine what is, risky and dangerous, you know, persons and how broad do we wanna get there? And this again, kind of just dovetails exactly back to the parties arguments because the petitioner would say, look, in the past. Uh, if you were drunk, and you lost your mind and your senses and you were on the streets and you were misusing firearms, that's the type of thing that's pretty close to, we all know drugs and guns are dangerous. Um, that combination together and, there's no requirement that they be ex, you know, we have to wait for that danger to happen. You know, the government is often very effective in pushing arguments of, You know, do we, do we really wanna wait for that risk to occur and the bad thing to happen before we try to stop it? Whereas Mr. Hemani is coming back and saying, look, you're talking about different cases, we're talking about marijuana use. every one of your studies that says, you know, marijuana use is dangerous. I have a study that says it not. and what's really fascinating here is, I was alluding to earlier, you know, the administration has proposed, rescheduling marijuana from a Schedule one, which would be of, you know, the highest risk of misuse to a schedule three, which would really put it in a line with like a anabolic steroid. Their HHS is determination is, most people that use marijuana are not, really a danger to, either themselves or to the public. So, that is, it's not a, legislature determination, but it is an executive determination. And how much weight do we give to that? So there's really two things going on here is there's a doctrinal question of are we gonna allow Congress to make these, broad determinations? Anyone that commits a felony is dangerous and just use that as a proxy. that's kind of question one. Or in this instance, anyone that uses a drug, and we can define it broadly. Because look, we're not, we don't have to get into the nuances, so says the government, versus, no, we have to look at these in a much more class basis. and someone who uses X drug or someone who takes y type of conduct is really what we're talking about. And then we're gonna get into the granular of like, let's talk about this case. And the Supreme Court can really, um, kind of choose how much they want to answer the first question or other, you know, as I said before, they left that question open in previous cases. the court when it wants to, it can answer a question, but if it can avoid answering those type of questions, it may choose to do so as well. for fear of saying more than they wanted to say. the special risk of misuse is, A really important issue in this case because it'll end up defining the parameters of just how broadly we're gonna get into these, other categories. 'cause spoiler alert, if anyone thinks this is gonna stop with, 922(g)(3) and the unlawful user, make sure you save your punch card for how many of these cases are gonna come up there. You're gonna get your free smoothie sooner or later because there, there's gonna be more cases, there's no shortage of petitions, there's no sorts of prosecutions. and these issues just keep percolating, over and over.

Yeah. Okay. And so is there, you mentioned the canon of statutory Avoidance or constitutional

Constitutional.

So it sounds like what you're saying is there, even though the question presented, the government is asking the Supreme Court to determine the Second Amendment viability of this statute, the Supreme Court isn't bound to answer that question. They could offload the case on statutory interpretation grounds.

Yeah, a a, absolutely. I mean, really, and if you look at respondent's briefs, they lead with this void for vagueness due process argument, And the best way to really think about it is before we can ever say whether a statute is constitutional or not, you have to figure out what is the statute even saying. And if the Supreme Court looks at it and says, look, any way you slice this, we really can't figure out what it's saying. And the text always has to, when I was speaking earlier about the constitutional avoidance and you'll try to ascribe a meaning to a statute. the text has to bear that weight, so you will not give the text, meaning that the words just cannot handle. and the majority of this court, across, ideological spectrums, ascribes to this idea of, textualist reading and using a lot of the principles of, plain meaning of a statute looking to dictionary contemporary usage. Usage at the time the statute was passed, to try to get at what Congress was meaning. So, there'll be the statutory battle is a big, heavy, weighty, meaty battle that really defines, what we as, individuals, Americans, citizens et cetera, understand the statute to mean so you can have a clear understanding. Not that if you're being prosecuted, you had to know the statute existed, but if somebody was looking at it in a vacuum and say, I know what this means. on the other hand, this idea of, look, if you get five people in a room and they're arguing over it and they have to go read, you know. Um, arcane or esoteric, uh, you know, opinions to say, well, this is what it actually says, and it's so divorced from the meaning of the statute, that that's where you start, running into trouble. and the court can really, you know, that spectrum is where they have to go. I will say, I think courts are hesitant to declare statutes, void for vagueness. But that said, they've done it several times. and particularly in the criminal context, in recent years and in statutes that implicate, the dangers of drugs and violence, and guns, and a lot more, uh, you know, heightened fashion than the one at issue here. I'm not a Poly Markets guy, but, going into this case, there are certainly, tea leaves on both sides that, would suggest that the Court has, different ways that they can look at it. But, when you get to that Second Amendment question, now you're raising an entirely different, can of worms. And now looking at this, big picture of just. How broadly can we restrict the Second Amendment right? I would really encourage people to think of it. I, spent a lot of my career, and still do, representing individuals, you know, charged under the statute. Um, you know, in, in various contexts there's always the question of like what Congress was getting at. Um, you know, it could be laudable goal, but really how does it play out in effect? and so if you look at a lot of the briefing in this case, you'll see. How is the statute actually being played out? in Mr. Hemani's case, he was being prosecuted or being investigated for potential terrorism ties, which really had, um, you know, really kind of rudimentary knowledge of, you know, uh, traffic patterns and visitations to, you know, foreign countries would maybe dispel like the notion. Not to say that there wasn't probably some basis to do the investigation, but it is telling when, you know, they searched his cell phone to find evidence, you have that issue at play here. not at the forefront of legal issues. But, his travel patterns, were being, surveilled. and he wasn't charged until months after he was, confronted with having this firearm. and that is a consistent pattern of, you know, there, I don't think anyone thinks the government was going into this case of saying: oh man, this guy just used marijuana every other day. We need to take the firearm out of his hands. they were really looking for something else else, but the statute exists so he could be charged. Um, and, uh, while not. you know, what's not at issue in this case is, is Mr. Hemani a dangerous person? It is in the background, like, is this the type of person or are you and your friends and colleagues or the people that you know, are you the type of person that really should be having your firearm taken away? and the Supreme Court is the body that that really is gonna have to answer that question.

Really looking forward to oral argument. And like I said, oral arguments take place on Monday, March 2nd. You can hear oral arguments on the High Court Report podcast feed. questions for you. I'll get you outta here on this. in the blanks. the United States wins, in the blank. if Ani wins, fill in the blank.

if the United States wins, in the Second Amendment restriction world, they will have a landscape that, Much more broadly than we understand today can define categories of dangerous and risky persons. and draw an analogy to say that those are the type of people that we can not only take away that are Second Amendment rights, but prosecute them, for those rights. Some listening may think that's a good thing. Others may worry that that, really restricts a Second Amendment right. But I don't think there's any. doubt to say if the United States wins. it will be taking a broader interpretation of what it means to be a dangerous and risky person than, we really presently understand. on the other hand, if Mr. Hemani wins, we will understand that the Supreme Court is saying the Second Amendment is the type of right, consistent with other rights that we know that, if you are going to restrict someone of that right, you not only need to, define the clear limits under criminal law about what that means, but also. The historical analogy has to be, sufficiently tailored. this, the level of generality cannot be so broad as to say, dangerous and risky persons could be, restricted in the past. Here's a category that, in some instances is dangerous. there will certainly be a much more, confined and narrowing construction. so when we're going forward and looking at other statutes. and other restrictions, whether it be even civil or criminal, we're really looking at, hey, does this, you know, is this consistent with, the way in which this, very important, right? that individuals have, is being restricted. So, you know, it's the age old battle of broad versus versus general. and I don't mean to generalize it in that way, but it will have implications, you know, going forward. and I'll caveat all that to say. 'cause you know, if you talk to a lawyer, you're never gonna get a straight answer on anything. there's always that third possibility that, they themselves take a narrow path and leave a lot of questions open for another day. which is important. 'cause again, this is a. And as applied case, as opposed to, a case that requires, broad generalities. But, undoubtedly the oral arguments are gonna be interesting. some real titans arguing this case, some great lawyers across the board, involved. and, really no stones left unturned when it comes to, bringing, big guns, to, a. vastly important question about, everyday life for Americans about, their relationship with the government and, their constitutional rights.

Adeel, thank you so much

Uh.

for walking us through and breaking down these complex issues. is the type of case where on the surface it can sound easy and straightforward, but then you go layers deep and you can find so many different avenues. Like you mentioned. This case touches on first Amendment, statutory interpretation, Second Amendment. It's a really fascinating case and we're really appreciate having you on. Before you go, where can listeners find you on social media?

hopefully soon, on other platforms. But the best place, I would say LinkedIn, you could find, Adeel, Bashir, feel free to look me up if you're in the, criminal defense world. I work for the, Federal Defenders Sentencing Resource Counsel. We have, national Listservs that are available to all federal defenders and all Criminal Justice Act, attorneys. and those that are members of National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and other, affiliations. So, feel free to reach out. Part of my job is to help wonderful lawyers and individuals, deal with these cases. So, pleasure to be here with your audience, but also pleasure to connect with others in the community to grapple with a lot of these issues. I'm sure everyone's gonna go back and now check their prescriptions and then also make sure their firearm is safely locked away. after this, yeah. Check your favorite cannabis and smoke shop. you know, they, they may have, they may have inadvertently made you a felon.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Well, again, thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate that. LinkedIn, Adeel Bashir, A-D-E-E-L B-A-S-H-I-R. We'll link to your LinkedIn feed in the show notes to make it easy for people to find you. Thanks again for your time and we will talk again soon.

Thanks so much, Ryan, and really love the service you're doing here for folks. I think it's critically important we have, an easier and broader understanding of the, the Supreme Court and be able to look at these issues 'cause they impact all of our lives with, um, you know, with a good understanding of all the issues and what's at stake.

Thank so much. I'll talk to you soon.