Supreme Court Drops Another Big 2nd Amendment Ruling

By
Mark Stevens
-

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Hawaii cannot broadly prohibit licensed gun owners from carrying firearms on privately owned property that is open to the public without the property owner’s consent, finding that the law violates the Second Amendment.

In a 6-3 decision in Wolford v. Lopez, the Court held that Hawaii’s restriction is presumptively unconstitutional because it burdens conduct protected by the Constitution’s text.

Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito concluded that the plaintiffs’ proposed conduct falls squarely within the Second Amendment.


“The restrictions imposed by Hawaii’s challenged law fall within the plain text of the Second Amendment, so the law is presumptively unconstitutional,” Alito wrote.

“No party disputes that petitioners are among ‘the people’ protected by the Second Amendment or that they seek to ‘bear’ ‘Arms,'” he continued. “Therefore, ‘the plain text of the Second Amendment protects’ what petitioners want to do: carry handguns for self-defense.”

Alito also argued that the Hawaii statute significantly burdens the right recognized by the Court.

“The law is presumptively unconstitutional,” he wrote, adding that it “hobbles what the Second Amendment protects: the right of Americans to carry arms for self-defense as they go about their daily lives.”


Chief Justice John Roberts joined Alito’s opinion, along with Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.

In a separate concurring opinion, Barrett emphasized that the case was not about whether private property owners may choose to prohibit firearms on their own premises. Rather, she wrote, the question was whether a state may impose that prohibition across all private property open to the public.

Barrett concluded that Hawaii had not justified the restriction based on any specific public safety concern.

“The rule does not target any particular abuse of firearms at all,” she wrote. “Rather than identifying a specific threat to public peace and safety, Hawaii admits that it enacted the rule because many of its citizens oppose the public carry of guns.”

“In other words, Hawaii is responding to the general danger associated with the presence of firearms, not to any specific, heightened risk of their misuse.”

Barrett rejected the idea that widespread public opposition to firearm carry could justify limiting a constitutional right.


“While most Hawaiians might prefer that no one carry firearms in public places, a majority’s opposition to a constitutional right is not a permissible basis for restricting it,” she wrote.

Quoting prior Supreme Court precedent, Barrett added: “The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy” and “to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials.”


She also drew a First Amendment comparison, arguing that just as a state could not broadly prohibit individuals from wearing religious attire such as hijabs on private property open to the public, it likewise could not broadly prohibit the exercise of Second Amendment rights in those locations.

The decision is expected to have consequences beyond Hawaii. According to SCOTUSblog, several states—including California, Maryland, New Jersey, and New York—have enacted similar laws that presume firearms are prohibited on private property open to the public unless the owner expressly allows them. Those statutes are now likely to face renewed legal challenges in light of the Court’s ruling.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR