By John Kruzel
WASHINGTON, June 25 (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court struck down on Thursday a Hawaii law restricting the carrying of handguns on private property open to the public, like most businesses, without the owner’s permission in the latest ruling by the justices expanding gun rights.
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The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 ruling powered by its conservative justices, found that Hawaii’s measure violated the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment right to “keep and bear arms.” The justices overturned a lower court’s decision that Hawaii’s Democratic-backed measure likely complied with the Second Amendment.
The challenge was backed by President Donald Trump’s administration at the Supreme Court.
Under the Hawaii law, gun owners were required to get a property owner’s “express authorization” before bringing a handgun onto private property open to the public.
“This regime hobbles what the Second Amendment protects: the right of Americans to carry arms for self-defense as they go about their daily lives,” conservative Justice Samuel Alito, who authored the ruling, said of the Hawaii measure. “We hold that the law is unconstitutional.”
Several other U.S. states have similar laws that could now be on shaky legal ground as a result of Thursday’s decision.
In a nation bitterly divided over how to address persistent firearms violence including frequent mass shootings, the Supreme Court often has taken an expansive view of Second Amendment protections including in major rulings in 2008, 2010 and 2022.
‘PROTECTING GUNS’
The court’s three liberal justices dissented.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, in a dissent joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, accused the court’s conservative majority of having “manipulated” a prior Supreme Court ruling “into a free-for-all that lets the judiciary thwart the will of legislatures by privileging access to firearms above all else.”
“Today’s decision makes one thing clear: The court’s objective is protecting guns, not consistently preserving any principle of law,” Jackson wrote.
Billy Clark, an attorney at the gun control advocacy group Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which filed a brief backing Hawaii in the case, expressed disappointment with the ruling.
“Hawaii’s private property law wasn’t about banning firearms. Instead, it reflected the commonsense notion that property owners have a right to choose whether to allow firearms on their private property — places where their kids, neighbors and community members deserve to have peace of mind,” Clark said.
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“Thankfully, the opinion still leaves open avenues for property owners to exercise that right,” Clark added.
Three Hawaii residents with concealed-carry licenses and a Honolulu-based gun-rights advocacy group sued to challenge the Hawaii law weeks after Democratic Governor Josh Green signed it in 2023.
Hawaii officials contended that the law struck a proper balance between the right to bear arms and the right of property owners to exclude guns from their property.
‘A DE FACTO BAN’
Alan Beck, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, welcomed Thursday’s ruling striking down what he called “a de facto ban on public carry.”
“Today’s opinion vindicates my clients’ right to public carry,” Beck said.
The challengers in the Hawaii case cited the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in a case called New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen that found that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to carry a handgun outside the home for self-defense.
The Bruen decision invalidated New York state’s limits on carrying concealed handguns outside the home. In doing so, the court created a test for assessing firearms laws, saying they must be “consistent with this nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation,” not simply advance an important government interest.
A federal judge preliminarily blocked Hawaii’s restrictions. But the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals largely ruled against the law’s challengers, prompting their Supreme Court appeal.
The Supreme Court did not take up an aspect of the legal challenge that focused on the law’s provisions banning the carrying of handguns at beaches, bars and other sensitive places.
The Hawaii case was not the only important Second Amendment case decided by the Supreme Court during its current term. The justices on June 18 limited the application of a decades-old federal law that bars firearms possession by certain drug users, rejecting a position taken by the Trump administration that had threatened the gun rights of millions of Americans who use marijuana and own firearms.
The court last year upheld a federal regulation targeting largely untraceable “ghost guns,” finding the measure to be consistent with a 1968 federal law. Ghost gun products are typically purchased online and may be quickly assembled at home, without the serial numbers ordinarily used to trace guns or background checks on purchasers required for other firearms. That case was not decided on Second Amendment grounds.
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(Reporting by John Kruzel; Editing by Will Dunham)
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