In United States v. Youngblood, --- F.4th ---, No. 24-7629 (9th Cir. 2026), the Court affirmed Dylan Youngblood’s conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3) for possessing a firearm while being an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance. Basically, the Opinion says the law on § 922(g)(3) is still the law.
Following his entry of a conditional guilty plea, Dylan Youngblood appeals the district court’s denial of his motion to dismiss his indictment for possessing a firearm while being an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3). Youngblood contends that § 922(g)(3) is both facially unconstitutional and unconstitutional as applied to him under the Second Amendment.After Youngblood filed his Opening Brief and before the government filed its Answering Brief, our court held that § 922(g)(3) is facially constitutional. United States v. Stennerson, 150 F.4th 1276, 1285 (9th Cir. 2025). Then, after Youngblood filed his Reply Brief, the Supreme Court ruled that § 922(g)(3) was unconstitutional as applied to an individual who “used marijuana ‘about every other day.’” United States v. Hemani, 608 U.S. 772, 778, 795 (2026). Because Stennerson remains binding on this court post-Hemani and Youngblood has waived his as-applied challenge, we affirm.
