The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a Hawaii law that banned guns on private property open to the public where the owner hadn’t explicitly condoned the carrying of firearms.
In the ruling, the conservative majority said the law – passed after a blockbuster 2022 ruling from the high court expanding gun rights – was unconstitutional.
“This regime hobbles what the Second Amendment protects: the right of Americans to carry arms for self-defense as they go about their daily lives. We hold that the law is unconstitutional,” Justice Samuel Alito said in the majority opinion for the court.
The 6-3 ruling along conservative-liberal lines is a major setback for gun-safety advocates who had been looking for new ways to limit the presence of guns in retail stores and in other public spaces after the 2022 Supreme Court decision that enshrined public firearm carry as a Second Amendment right.
“The ruling in the Hawaii case crosses a line that the justices had thus far resisted — holding that the Second Amendment protects the right of Americans to bring firearms even onto private property so long as that property is open to the public,” said Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at Georgetown University Law Center.
