The Supreme Court has called out the state of Hawaii, after an earlier law that essentially made it impossible to get a license to carry a firearm was struck down, for replacing it with a similar demand that accomplished essentially the same thing.
That law, too, now has been banished.
The court ruled 6-3 that Hawaii’s newest gun ban was unconstitutional under the Second and 14th Amendments.
The majority opinion was a major win for gun rights activists as it threw out Hawaii’s insistence that it could require gun owners to get “permission” to carry firearms on any private property that is open to the public in the state.
The opinion pointed out that “For years, the State of Hawaii made it almost impossible to obtain a license to carry a firearm. Four years ago, however, this Court held in New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U. S. 1, that the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect the right to carry hand guns outside the home for self-defense.
“Hawaii responded by replacing its old law on carry permits with new laws that achieved a similar result,” the court said.
The fight this time is over the state’s “law that prohibits firearms on private property open to the public without the express and affirmative consent of the property owner.”
The court found the law a burden.
“When these permit holders leave home, not only must they take care to avoid all the territory where the possession of a gun is prohibited outright, but they may also be barred from entering many places that people routinely visit in the course of their daily routines, such as gas stations, restaurants, and stores.”
The ruling said Hawaii officials were flipping the default rule at common law, “under which anyone has an implied license to enter property held open to the public unless the property owner withdraws consent.”
The opinion cited both the earlier Heller and McDonald rulings, which struck down gun limits imposed by extremists.
Hellbound and Down 