The Default Rule is the Regulation

One physician’s signature can disarm a Pennsylvanian indefinitely.

A Pennsylvanian can lose the right to keep and bear arms in an afternoon. No judge signs anything. No hearing is held. A physician performs a quick exam and fills out a form. The statute does the rest, and nobody has to tell the patient. If the patient wants the right back, the burden falls on that patient: Find a lawyer, file a petition, ask a court—all after the fact.

That is a public policy choice, and in June in United States v. Hemani the U.S. Supreme Court looked hard at a mechanism similar to Pennsylvania’s. Ali Hemani “uses marijuana a few times a week,” and the government prosecuted him under section 922(g)(3) of the Gun Control Act of 1968 for keeping a gun at home. The government pointed to founding-era “habitual drunkard” laws as a supposed analog. Those laws, the Court found, differ from section 922(g)(3) on every metric. What matters is how the old laws worked. They typically provided some type of due process before individuals lost any of their rights. Section 922(g)(3), by contrast, divest individuals of their right to bear arms at the time they become an unlawful user until they end their drug use without any process.