Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Gun Case Testing Right to Carry (1)

The US Supreme Court said it will take up a new gun-rights case, agreeing to review a Hawaii law that bars people from bringing firearms to malls, stores and other private property without the owner’s express permission.

The high court will hear an appeal from three Hawaii residents who say the restrictions operate as a sweeping prohibition on the right to carry a handgun in public, violating the Constitution’s Second Amendment.

Hawaiians “no longer may carry firearms for lawful self-defense in tens of thousands of private property locations,” the residents argued. The court will hear arguments and rule by July.

The Supreme Court ruled in 2022 that the Second Amendment protects gun rights outside the home, striking down a New York law that sharply limited who could get a license to carry firearms.

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Hawaii’s 2023 law bars people from carrying firearms onto private property that is open to the public unless the owner gives permission by “unambiguous written or verbal authorization” or by posting “clear and conspicuous signage.”

A federal appeals court sided with the state on the disputed provision, and Hawaii urged the Supreme Court to reject the appeal.

The provision “represents a valid governmental effort to vindicate property owners’ fundamental right to exclude by enacting a default rule that comports with the community’s reasonable expectations regarding armed entry onto private property,” the state argued.

Other parts of the 2023 Hawaii law — not directly at issue in the Supreme Court case — ban firearms in government buildings, public parks and beaches, and bars and restaurants that serve alcohol.

The case could be one of multiple Second Amendment clashes the Supreme Court takes up in the nine-month term that starts Monday. Pending appeals ask the justices to consider the federal ban on firearm possession by drug users, as well as state laws that set 21 as the minimum age to possess a gun and a ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines.

The new case is Wolford v. Lopez, 24-1046.

(Updates with excerpts from court filings starting in third paragraph.)

To contact the reporter on this story:
Greg Stohr in Washington at gstohr@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Elizabeth Wasserman at ewasserman2@bloomberg.net

Steve Stroth, Peter Blumberg

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