"'Habitual drunkard,' the American Temperance Society back in the day said eight shots of whiskey a day only made you an 'occasional drunkard,' Gorsuch explained. We have to remember the founding era, if you want to invoke the founding era, to be a 'habitual drunkard,' you had to do double that, okay?"
"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 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?"
In United States v. Hemani, the federal government defended a statute prohibiting controlled substance users from possessing firearms by referencing early American laws restricting rights of habitual drunkards. Justice Gorsuch challenged this originalist argument by demonstrating that founding-era standards for habitual drunkenness were extraordinarily high. He noted that the American Temperance Society considered eight shots of whiskey daily only occasional use, and true habitual drunkenness required double that amount. Gorsuch highlighted that prominent Founders like John Adams, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson consumed substantial daily quantities of alcohol, yet successfully governed the nation. His analysis suggests that applying founding-era drunk laws to modern drug users lacks historical foundation.
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