The nation’s top gun control groups are awkwardly avoiding talking about Hunter Biden’s gun conviction — and his widely expected appeal on Second Amendment grounds.

In the day since President Joe Biden’s son was found guilty of owning a gun while being a drug user and lying about his drug use on a purchase form, POLITICO asked seven top gun control groups how they are navigating the verdict and likely appeal. Several advocates were asked directly if they believe — as the president’s son argues — that it is unconstitutional to ban drug users from possessing guns.

Not a single one commented on the case or the broader legal question, underscoring how uncomfortable the politics around the case are for the gun control groups pushing hard for Biden’s reelection.

“That’s all about politics,” said a gun violence prevention activist, granted anonymity due to the political sensitivities. “This is just: ‘No, we’re not going to get in the middle of this shitstorm. Nothing good can come of it.’”

The tension was never more apparent than on Tuesday, when just hours after Hunter Biden was found guilty on three felony counts stemming from his 2018 purchase of a handgun, the president delivered remarks at a high-profile event for Everytown for Gun Safety to mark national gun violence prevention month.

His son’s lawyers tried, to no avail, to have the charges thrown out before trial on Second Amendment grounds, and they are virtually certain to renew that argument when they appeal the conviction. They are trying to harness recent court rulings, led by the Supreme Court’s conservative majority, that have taken an increasingly expansive view of gun rights.

The president, in his remarks Tuesday, did not mention his son. Instead he touted progress stemming from historic gun legislation he helped pass and a drop in crime, while reiterating previous comments that the Second Amendment does not mean anyone can own a gun no matter what.

“There’s never been a time that says you can own anything you want,” the president said, speaking at Everytown’s Gun Sense University convening at the Washington Hilton.

The movement for tighter gun laws has seen substantive policy success under the Biden administration, progress attributable both to the shift in politics around the issue but also the president’s personal interest in combating the gun violence crisis. A coalition of major gun control groups threw their support behind Biden’s reelect last fall, calling him and Vice President Kamala Harris the “strongest champions for gun violence prevention to ever take residence in the White House.”

The Biden administration has issued numerous executive actions restricting the purchase and possession of guns and worked with Congress to pass the first gun-related law in nearly three decades. That law toughened background checks for young gun buyers, helped states implement red flag laws and kept firearms from a wider swath of domestic violence offenders. He also launched the first-ever federal office of gun violence prevention, while making moves to further expand background checks. And on Tuesday, he reiterated his calls for additional restrictions, including a federal ban on assault weapons.

His campaign sees the issue as a fruitful one — both as a way to energize base voters and court suburban independent women. It’s a messaging strategy that clashes with his son’s legal advocacy for a broader view of the Second Amendment.

The centerpiece of the three felony counts that Hunter Biden was convicted of is a longstanding provision of the federal Gun Control Act that bars people from having guns if they are users of, or addicted to, “any controlled substance.” But the constitutionality of that law has been part of the swirl of legal questions surrounding gun restrictions since 2022, when the Supreme Court announced a new approach to the Second Amendment in a landmark case known as New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. 

In that decision, the court said restrictions on gun purchases are valid only if they are consistent with gun laws that existed at the nation’s founding — a decision that both gun control groups and the president decried. Bruen spawned a slew of conflicting lower-court rulings about how closely today’s gun laws, including the drug-users prohibition, must mirror those from the late 1700s.

In reaction to the Bruen ruling, the president issued a statement saying he was “deeply disappointed” and that it “contradicts both common sense and the Constitution.” He added that the “Second Amendment is not absolute,” language that is a staple of his messaging around guns.

But the president’s son relied heavily on Bruen in seeking to have his charges tossed out before trial.

“Gun control is a politically charged topic,” his lawyers wrote last December. But the drug-users prohibition in the Gun Control Act is “indefensible under the Bruen framework” and must be struck down as unconstitutional, they argued.

Judge Maryellen Noreika, a Donald Trump appointee who oversaw the trial, rejected Hunter Biden’s bid to have the provision struck down wholesale. Shortly before the trial, he mounted a modified effort for a judge-ordered acquittal on Second Amendment grounds. Noreika has not yet ruled on that long-shot motion.

Hunter Biden’s best chance of success for his constitutional argument will be on appeal, where he is virtually certain to ask higher courts — including, perhaps, the Supreme Court — to declare the drug-users prohibition unconstitutional and to set aside his conviction.

Meanwhile, his team is closely watching for a Supreme Court ruling, expected by the end of this month, in another high-stakes gun rights case, United States v. Rahimi. The defendant, Zackey Rahimi, was convicted of illegally possessing a gun while under a domestic violence restraining order. He has argued that the ban is unconstitutional on similar history-based grounds that Hunter Biden and others have used to challenge the drug-users prohibition.

A ruling in favor of Rahimi would be a boon for Hunter Biden. It would be another sign of the high court’s radically expansive view of gun rights, and it would portend that the drug-user prohibition may be the next gun control measure to fall. But such a ruling would also draw horror and condemnation from the president — once again pitting the White House’s policy positions against the president’s son’s legal defense.

“This is such a frenzied time for gun law, and we may know as soon as tomorrow what the Supreme Court has to say about at least one of the violations he was convicted of. And so I think a lot of people are anxious to see how Rahimi turns out and whether or not it gives clarity to the application of Bruen,” said Thomas Chittum, the former associate deputy director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and now a law professor who teaches a course on the Second Amendment.

Second Amendment advocates have been much more vocal on the conviction than their restrictionist opponents. The National Rifle Association issued a statement obliquely praising the conviction.

“The National Rifle Association has always stood for the lawful use and possession of firearms. Mr. Biden’s documented lifestyle choices at the time of purchasing a firearm made him a prohibited person under current law,” said Randy Kozuch, executive director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action, in a statement to POLITICO. The NRA did not respond to a follow-up question on whether the organization believes the Second Amendment allows for bans on drug users from having guns.

Other gun rights organizations used the verdict to bolster their push for looser gun laws. The Firearms Policy Coalition reiterated an offer to aid Hunter Biden in his challenge.

“Countless lives are destroyed every year under the federal government’s unconstitutional and immoral regulations. We proudly work to eliminate these laws and create a free world. Just as we have in many other cases, we stand ready to assist Mr. Biden in his challenge of federal gun laws,” said FPC President Brandon Combs.