In popular folklore, vampires must be given permission to enter a property. Hawaiian law treats gun owners the same way.
Attorneys for the state argued Tuesday before the U.S. Supreme Court that their law requiring express permission from a property owner to enter with a gun abides by the Constitution’s Second Amendment. Attorneys representing Maui gun owners and the Hawaii Firearms Coalition say the law effectively bans constitutional carrying of firearms.
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A ruling in the Aloha State’s favor would have effects far outside of the Pacific island chain.
Hawaii’s 2024 law requires a gun owner who has a concealed carry license to get “express authorization to carry a firearm on the property by the owner, lessee, operator, or manager of the property.”
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the law.
Arguments center on 2022 decision
The Supreme Court’s landmark Bruen decision in 2022 was the start of — and could be the end of — a series of cases like the one the justices heard arguments on today. The New York-based lawsuit challenged the state’s “proper-cause” requirement to get a concealed-carry permit.
The court’s opinion became the new litmus test for whether states are infringing on the Second Amendment that focused more on the Constitution than what’s called “interest balancing” of gun laws. Before Bruen, judges were able to qualify gun laws as constitutional by considering modern-day interests and context.
The ruling led to a cascade of state and local gun laws being challenged and struck down. States like California were forced to issue more concealed carry licenses and do it quickly instead of requiring applicants to prove they needed to carry for protection.
Much of Tuesday’s Supreme Court argument in the Hawaiian case centered around Bruen.
“Bruen gave rise to the need for clarity about property owners,” Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson said.
The court’s conservative justices sounded skeptical of the state’s argument that the law doesn’t infringe on 2nd Amendment rights. They questioned how this law differed from making gun owners into a “second-class status” similar to post-Civil War “Black codes” that limited gun ownership differently for formerly enslaved people.
Similar cases
Attorneys for Hawaii told the justices that five states have enacted similar laws and others are considering doing so.
One of the best ways to make an issue “ripe” for consideration before the Supreme Court is to have conflicting rulings in separate federal districts on it.
A challenge to an identical law is making its way through the Second Circuit. Antonyuk v.
James involves the New York State Police’s Conceal Carry Improvement Act. After the Supreme Court remanded it, an appellate court upheld much of the law but struck down the “vampire” provision that’s in play for Hawaii’s case.
The Supreme Court will release an opinion later this year.
