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 was unconstitutional.

Second Amendment Rights

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. 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.

The dispute over the Hawaii law is the latest case that asked the justices to grapple with the 2022 ruling, known as Bruen, that laid out a historical test for assessing the constitutionality of gun laws. Under the 2022 opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas, restrictions regulating Second Amendment conduct can only be upheld by courts if there were similar laws that existed at the time of the constitution’s drafting.

Dissenting Opinions

In a dissent joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote a dissenting opinion that said the court’s ruling “overrides Hawaii’s considered—and in my view, constitutionally sound—judgment that the property interests of its residents should be protected against unauthorized armed entry.” Justice Elena Kagan wrote a separate dissent, while Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote concurrence partially joined by fellow conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch.

Original reporting: KEYT (Ventura/Santa Barbara) — read the source article.