When the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 handed down its ruling in the case New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, everything changed on how cases involving the Second Amendment are adjudicated.
In a nutshell, the ruling upheld the right of Americans to carry a firearm outside the home for self-defense. However, it also set a new standard for how Second Amendment cases are to be considered.
Under the new standard, courts must ask whether the “Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct?” If the answer is yes, it next must ask whether there exists a “historical precedent from before, during and even after the founding [that] evidences a comparable tradition of regulation?”
After the ruling, many states with anti-gun legislatures began passing “Bruen response” laws trying to sidestep the ruling while still infringing on the Second Amendment rights of their citizens. One such was Hawaii, where lawmakers quickly passed a law forbidding carry on private property open to the public, such as restaurants, gas stations and grocery stores, without the property owner’s express consent.
Gun owners quickly filed a lawsuit, Wolford v. Lopez, challenging the law. While a district court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals later reversed that ruling, finding that the law doesn’t run afoul of Second Amendment protections.
Of course, plaintiffs filed an appeal. And now SCOTUS has agreed to decide the case.
The National Rifle Association in May filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to hear the case. Now that the court has agreed, the NRA plans file another arguing that the law violates the Second Amendment.
The first NRA brief explained that Hawaii’s law was deliberately designed to make public carry so impractical that citizens choose not to exercise their rights.
“If this Court denies certiorari, there will be no meaningful right to carry in Hawaii for at least several years while the litigation proceeds,” the brief argued. “Individuals who have gone through the trouble of getting a concealed carry permit (‘CCW’) will be limited to carrying on some streets and sidewalks, in banks and in certain parking lots. Everything else is off limits—including 96.4% of the publicly accessible land in Maui County.”
The brief further urged the Supreme Court to take up the case because of the runaway nature of the 9th Circuit Court when it comes to Second Amendment lawsuits.
“For those Americans fortunate to live within the jurisdiction of circuits that respect the Second Amendment, this ruling may seem shocking …,” the brief stated. “But gun owners living on the West Coast or in Hawaii were hardly surprised by the result. The Ninth Circuit’s hostility toward the Second Amendment is well-documented, having recorded an ‘undefeated, 50-0 record’ of upholding gun laws before Bruen.
“Bruen changed nothing for the Ninth Circuit, and the Wolford ruling is not even the most recent example of that court giving ‘a judicial middle finger to’ this Court. So brazen has the Ninth Circuit’s defiance become that even when the Wolford panel disgracefully relied on a racist Black Code to justify Hawaii’s law, the Ninth Circuit refused to correct it, denying en banc review over the dissents of eight judges.”
The court will likely begin hearing the case sometime early next year.
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