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

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.

Justice Samuel Alito said in the majority opinion for the court, “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.”

Dissenting Opinion

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.

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.

Original reporting: El Paso News (HLL/CB) — read the source article.