After New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen recognized a constitutional right to carry handguns outside the home for self-defense, Hawaii enacted a law prohibiting licensed handgun carriers from carrying firearms on private property open to the public unless the property owner gave express permission. The law effectively reversed the ordinary common-law default under which members of the public may enter property held open to them unless the owner objects.
Licensed carriers challenged the law under the Second and Fourteenth Amendments. A federal district court temporarily enjoined the restriction, but the Ninth Circuit reversed and allowed it to take effect.
The Supreme Court reversed and remanded in a 6–3 decision. Writing for the majority, Justice Alito explained that the challenged law fell within the Second Amendment’s plain text because it restricted protected persons from carrying handguns for self-defense. The law was therefore presumptively unconstitutional unless Hawaii could show that the restriction was consistent with the historical understanding of the right.
The Supreme Court rejected Hawaii’s proposed historical analogues. The Court recognized how early colonial and state laws restricting unauthorized hunting on private land addressed different conduct and different harms, and isolated historical enactments could not establish a general American tradition.
The Court also emphasized that historical analogues must be evaluated for their prevalence, acceptance, and relevant similarity, including how and why they restricted firearms. Property owners remain free to prohibit firearms on their property; the constitutional defect was Hawaii’s decision to impose a broad state-created presumption against otherwise lawful carry.
The Supreme Court also rejected the suggestion that Hawaii’s distinctive local traditions could alter the scope of an incorporated constitutional right, explaining that the Second Amendment has the same constitutional meaning throughout the United States.
Justice Barrett concurred to clarify the different roles history plays at the two steps of the Bruen analysis. Justice Kagan dissented, reasoning that founding-era laws requiring affirmative permission before armed entry onto private property were sufficiently analogous to Hawaii’s rule. Justice Jackson, joined by Justice Sotomayor, separately dissented, arguing that property owners’ historical right to exclude placed the regulated conduct outside the Second Amendment at the first step and that, in any event, Hawaii had identified adequate historical analogues.
Certiorari to the Ninth Circuit
Opinion by Alito, joined by Roberts, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett
Concurring opinion by Barrett; Thomas and Gorsuch joined Part II–B
Dissenting opinion by Kagan
Dissenting opinion by Jackson, joined by Sotomayor
Click here to read the opinion.