The US Supreme Court struck down a restrictive gun law in Hawaii that banned people from carrying firearms in most public spaces and on private property without the owner's permission. The ruling marks the latest major Second Amendment decision following the 2022 Bruen v New York precedent.
Details of the struck-down law
At issue was a 2023 Hawaii state law that barred carrying a firearm on private property without the owner's approval and created a list of more than a dozen “sensitive places” where guns cannot be carried, such as beaches and restaurants that serve alcohol. The case was brought by three Maui residents who were permitted to carry concealed firearms, along with the Hawaii Firearms Coalition.
Plaintiffs' arguments
The plaintiffs argued that Hawaii's policy violates their Second Amendment rights and does not meet the precedent set by the watershed 2022 Bruen v New York decision, which requires gun laws to be “consistent with the nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation.” They also contended that law enforcement's definition of “sensitive places” was far too broad and virtually included “all places of public congregation,” according to the complaint filed against Hawaii's attorney general.
Impact of the Bruen precedent
The case was the latest to be brought before the court based on the Bruen precedent, which still has the potential to void many state restrictions like carrying firearms in public, or lifetime bans for people convicted of violent and non-violent crimes alike. Despite initial celebration from gun rights groups over the Bruen decision, the ruling has not led to an en masse removal of all gun policies lacking a historical twin.
Related Supreme Court cases
In the 2024 Rahimi case, the first case to follow Bruen, the majority conservative court decided to uphold a 30-year-old federal law prohibiting subjects of domestic violence restraining orders from possessing guns. In the same term, the Supreme Court took up Garland v Cargill, which led to the repeal of a ban on the sale of bump stocks, a device that allows guns to fire at a speed comparable to machine guns. The bump stock ban was imposed during the first Trump administration after the devices were used in a 2017 mass shooting at a music festival in Las Vegas, where 60 people were shot and killed. Unlike Rahimi, the Cargill case centered not on whether bump stock bans violate the Second Amendment and Bruen precedent, but on whether the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) overstepped with its interpretation of the federal machine gun ban.
