According to a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, a number of the founding fathers of this country would be considered “drunkards” these days.
This came up in the a recent case before the court having to do with Second Amendment rights.
If that sounds strange to you (and, you’re right, it is strange), there is a logic as to why that particular subject came up in the case.
Now, to give a bit of context, several of the U.S.’s founding fathers drank quite a bit more alcohol than many Americans these days would consider to be “moderate amounts,” It’s pretty surprising.
The question before the court, though, is whether people who are regular users of controlled substances, such as alcohol or drugs, should be prohibited from having firearms because of their alcohol or substance use. Zach Schonfeld writes,
As the government argued the law [preventing regular substance users from having firearms] covers habitual drug users, Gorsuch noted the American Temperance Society once said eight shots of whiskey only made someone an “occasional” drunkard. Laughter erupted in the courtroom.
“If you want to invoke the founding era, to be a habitual drunkard, you had to do double that, okay?” Gorsuch said.
“John Adams took a tankard of hard cider with his breakfast every day,” the justice continued. “James Madison reportedly drank a pint of whiskey every day. Thomas Jefferson said he wasn’t much a user of alcohol — he only had three or four glasses of wine a night, okay?
“Are they all habitual drunkards who would be properly disarmed for life under your theory?”
The government responded they would not.
So, according to the Department of Justice, under the current law, someone who starts off their day with a tankard of hard cider wouldn’t be banned from having a firearm, but someone who uses marijuana, for example, regularly for medicinal purposes would be banned.
Now, whatever your position on alcohol or illegal drugs, there is a huge consistency problem with the current law in which some situations are legal, but others, which are, arguably, not much different, are illegal.
As a Second Amendment absolutist, I would fall on the side of every adult can legally have firearms… and they bear the responsibility for their use or misuse of said firearm, drinking or toking or not.
Obviously, though, some people disagree with me on that.
What are your thoughts on this case? Tell us your position and why you’ve taken that position in the comments below.
