According to about a dozen media reports focusing on the U.S. Supreme Court case challenging Hawaii’s ban on concealed carry on private properties with public access, the court seems poised to rule that law unconstitutional.
The case Wolford v. Lopez challenges the “vampire law” Hawaii passed following the 2022 Bruen ruling. The law forbids concealed carry of firearms on private property open to the public, such as restaurants, gas stations and grocery stores, without the property owner’s express consent.
Hawaii claims the law should stand because of traditions in place when it was still a kingdom, not part of the United States. “We have traditions here that predate joining the Union, and they should reign supreme over the Constitution,” the state wrote in a recent brief for the court.”
While many might scoff at that assertion, Hawaii doubled down on it, rather than simply missing it in passing.
“Before Bruen, Hawaii had strict rules limiting public carry that reflected its traditions from before Hawaii became a state,” the brief continued. “Pre-statehood, Hawaii was a kingdom, and King Kamehameha III promulgated a law prohibiting ‘any person or persons’ from possessing deadly weapons, including any ‘knife, sword-cane or any other dangerous weapon.’”
Apparently, however, most of the Supreme Court justices aren’t buying that argument. In fact, according to a report at Scotusblog.com, justices seem to be gravitating toward the plaintiffs’ arguments.
“The Supreme Court on Tuesday appeared to side with a group of Maui gun owners in their challenge to a Hawaii law restricting their ability to bring their guns onto private property that is open to the public,” the blog stated. “After approximately two hours of oral argument in Wolford v. Lopez, virtually all of the court’s six Republican appointees seemed to agree with the challengers that the law, which requires the gun owners to obtain express permission from the property owner, violates the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms.”
Bolstering that thought, the blog singled out two comments by justices that highly favored the plaintiffs. Chief Justice John Roberts suggested that recent cases show that the Second Amendment has unfairly been a “disfavored right,” while Justice Samuel Alito told a lawyer for Hawaii that the state was “relegating the Second Amendment to second-class status”—the words used by Justice Clarence Thomas in the Bruen opinion.
A report on ABCnews.com also indicated that justices were leaning toward striking down the law. The story was headlined: “Supreme Court seems likely to strike down Hawaii’s restrictions on guns in stores and hotels.”
“The conservative justices who form the court’s majority seemed roundly skeptical of the state’s argument, questioning whether Hawaii could make similar rules restricting First Amendment freedom of speech rights on private property,” the report stated.
At least one liberal justice, none other than mental giant Ketanji Brown Jackson, argued that the law doesn’t implicate the Second Amendment as much as the issue of property rights. “The Second Amendment yields to the property interests of a private property owner,” she stated.
The Supreme Court is expected to hand down a ruling in the case by the end of June.
