{"id":261,"date":"2026-06-25T15:43:21","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T15:43:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=261"},"modified":"2026-06-25T15:43:21","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T15:43:21","slug":"supreme-court-strikes-hawaii-gun-restriction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=261","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court strikes Hawaii gun restriction"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a Hawaii law that makes it a crime for gun owners to bring their guns onto private property that is open to the public unless they have the property owner\u2019s specific consent. In Wolford v. Lopez<\/em>, by a vote of 6-3, the with a group of Maui residents with concealed-carry permits that the law violates the Second Amendment\u2019s guarantee of the right to bear arms.<\/p>\n

Read more Major decisions ahead<\/a><\/p>\n

Thursday\u2019s decision will have an impact not only in Hawaii, but also in four other states \u2013 California, Maryland, New York, and New Jersey \u2013 with similar laws.<\/p>\n

In his 24-page opinion for the court, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that the law \u201chobbles what the Second Amendment protects: the right of Americans to carry arms for self-defense as they go about their daily lives.\u201dJustice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who dissented, countered that the law \u201cfairly applies a first principle of property law\u2014the right to exclude\u2014and does no harm to the Second Amendment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hawaii passed the law in 2023, just under one year after the Supreme Court\u2019s decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen<\/em>. In Bruen<\/em>, the court invalidated a New York handgun-licensing law that required state residents who wanted to carry a handgun in public to show that they had a special need to defend themselves. The court also made clear that the Second Amendment protects a broad right to carry a handgun outside the home for self-defense. In his for the majority in Bruen<\/em>, Justice Clarence Thomas emphasized that courts should uphold gun restrictions only if they are \u201cconsistent with the Nation\u2019s historical tradition of firearm regulation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before Hawaii\u2019s ban could go into effect, three Maui residents with concealed-carry permits, as well as a local gun-rights group, went to federal court to challenge the law. A federal appeals court\u00a0upheld\u00a0the ban, finding that there was likely \u201ca national tradition \u2026 of prohibiting the carrying of firearms on private property without the owner\u2019s oral or written consent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Announcement of opinions for Thursday, June 25<\/a><\/p>\n

The challengers then went to the Supreme Court, \u00a0the justices to weigh in. The court agreed to do so in October and heard oral argument in January.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, the Supreme Court reversed. Alito found it clear that the Hawaii law fell within \u201cthe plain text of the Second Amendment.\u201d The key question before the court, in his view, was whether there was a history of similar regulations in early U.S. and English history. But neither Hawaii\u2019s assertion of a \u201clong history of antipathy to the private possession of firearms\u201d nor its reliance on \u201claws that prohibited unauthorized hunting of deer or small game on someone else\u2019s private property\u201d support the current Hawaii law, Alito concluded. \u201cThe gap,\u201d he wrote, \u201cis just too wide.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alito also rejected the state\u2019s reliance on \u201can 1865 Louisiana statute that made it unlawful \u2018for any person or persons to carry fire-arms on the premises or plantations of any citizens,\u2019\u201d without the owner\u2019s consent. That law was \u201cneither widespread nor widely accepted,\u201d Alito contended, and in any event, it was adopted to discriminate against formerly enslaved people in the wake of the Civil War.<\/p>\n

In a dissent joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Jackson contended that \u201cHawaii\u2019s law does not implicate the Second Amendment because there is no right to carry a gun onto private property without consent (as all agree), and the Constitution does not dictate the form of that required consent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more The blast radius of Callais \u2013 and what it means for Constitutional Law<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a Hawaii law that makes it a crime for gun owners to bring their guns onto private property that is open to the public unless they have the property owner\u2019s specific consent. In Wolford v. Lopez, by a vote of 6-3, the with a group of Maui residents […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":260,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion-analysis"],"yoast_head":"\nSupreme Court strikes Hawaii gun restriction - American Service Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=261\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Supreme Court strikes Hawaii gun restriction - American Service Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a Hawaii law that makes it a crime for gun owners to bring their guns onto private property that is open to the public unless they have the property owner\u2019s specific consent. 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