Supreme Court Strikes Down Hawaii Rule on Carrying Guns on Private Property

The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a Hawaii law that barred concealed-carry permit holders from bringing firearms onto private property open to the public unless the owner gave permission. The 6-3 decision in Wolford v. Lopez held that the rule violates the Second Amendment, CBS News and The Guardian reported. Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the court’s conservative majority that the Hawaii regime “hobbles what the Second Amendment protects: the right of Americans to carry arms for self-defense as they go about their daily lives.”

The law covered places like gas stations, restaurants and shops, and violating it was a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in prison, CBS reported. The law has been dubbed the “vampire rule,” CBS noted. “The Second Amendment has the same meaning in all parts of the United States,” Alito wrote. “It cannot give way to ‘the spirit of Aloha’ in Hawaii.” The ruling follows the court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which recognized a right to carry outside the home and requires gun laws to be rooted in the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation, according to CBS and the Guardian.

The case was brought by three Maui County residents and the Hawaii Firearms Coalition in 2023. A federal district court sided with them, but the 9th Circuit upheld the law before the Supreme Court took the case, CBS reported. The Trump administration backed the gun owners, arguing the rule was “blatantly unconstitutional” because an armed permit holder risked a crime just by stopping for gas or groceries, CBS said.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, dissented, arguing the case is not about gun rights but about property rights, since there is no constitutional right to enter private property without permission. She wrote that the majority has turned Bruen “into a free-for-all that lets the judiciary thwart the will of legislatures.” Justice Elena Kagan wrote separately that Hawaii’s rule resembles colonial and founding-era laws barring carrying firearms onto private land without the owner’s consent, CBS reported.

Reaction split along familiar lines. Kris Brown, president of the gun-control group Brady, called the decision “deeply dangerous,” and Billy Clark of the Giffords Law Center said the law “reflected the commonsense notion that property owners have a right to choose whether to allow firearms on their private property,” the Guardian reported. Adam Kraut of the Second Amendment Foundation had said before the ruling that the right to carry in public for self-defense is “one of the most fundamental underlying principles” of the amendment.

The decision’s reach is limited. It does not touch Hawaii’s other restrictions in sensitive places such as bars, beaches, parks, schools or government buildings, which were not at issue, CBS reported, and the Guardian said property owners can still bar guns by posting a notice. Hawaii is one of five states with laws presuming that owners prohibit carry on publicly accessible private property; the Guardian listed New York, New Jersey, Maryland and California as the others, and CBS said courts had already blocked similar measures in New York, California and Maryland. In the other 45 states, licensed handgun owners can generally carry onto such property, CBS reported.

The ruling came a week after the court said in another case that the government cannot automatically disarm people who regularly use marijuana and are not dangerous, CBS noted.