The Aloha State’s highest court upheld a man’s gun-carry conviction on Wednesday after rejecting landmark decisions from the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS).
Hawaii’s Supreme Court reversed a lower court decision that found charges leveled against Christopher Wilson for carrying a gun without a permit violated his rights. Instead, the court ruled its state constitution provides no gun-rights protections whatsoever. That’s despite it including a provision protecting the right of the people to keep and bear arms identical to the one in the federal Constitution.
“Article I, section 17 of the HawaiÊ»i Constitution mirrors the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution,” the Hawaiian court wrote in Hawaii v. Wilson. “We read those words differently than the current United States Supreme Court. We hold that in HawaiÊ»i there is no state constitutional right to carry a firearm in public.”
The ruling directly contrasts with the core holdings at the center of SCOTUS’s gun rights precedents. The state supreme court’s ruling explicitly rejects the federal supreme court’s findings in 2008’s District of Columbia v. Heller and 2022’s New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen. The lower court’s straightforward rejection of the higher court’s Second Amendment jurisprudence could provoke SCOTUS to take up the case and issue a rebuke, as it did when the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled protections don’t extend to modern weapons in 2016’s Caetano.
“There seems to us no doubt, on the basis of both text and history, that the Second Amendment conferred an individual right to keep and bear arms,” the majority wrote in Heller. Similarly, in Bruen, SCOTUS ruled “the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home.”
SCOTUS also outlined a history-based test for whether gun laws are compatible with the protections offered by the Second Amendment.
“[W]e hold that when the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct,” the majority wrote in Bruen. “To justify its regulation, the government may not simply posit that the regulation promotes an important interest. Rather, the government must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. Only if a firearm regulation is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition may a court conclude that the individual’s conduct falls outside the Second Amendment’s ‘unqualified command.’
The Hawaiian judges argued that standard should be tossed out, citing a line from an HBO drama.
“As the world turns, it makes no sense for contemporary society to pledge allegiance to the founding era’s culture, realities, laws, and understanding of the Constitution. ‘The thing about the old days, they the old days.’ The Wire: Home Rooms (HBO television broadcast Sept. 24, 2006) (Season Four, Episode Three).”
Instead of American history, the Hawaii court looked at the island’s pre-American history for guidance on the protections provided by its state constitution.
“We reject Wilson’s constitutional challenges,” the court wrote. “Conventional interpretive modalities and HawaiÊ»i’s historical tradition of firearm regulation rule out an individual right to keep and bear arms under the HawaiÊ»i Constitution.”
The judges concluded Hawaii’s unique spirit overrode SCOTUS’s view that its citizens are entitled to gun rights.
“The spirit of Aloha clashes with a federally-mandated lifestyle that lets citizens walk around with deadly weapons during day-to-day activities,” the Hawaiian Supreme Court wrote. “The history of the Hawaiian Islands does not include a society where armed people move about the community to possibly combat the deadly aims of others.”
However, the Hawaiian court also went further and found the carry ban did not violate Wilson’s federal gun rights either.
“Bruen snubs federalism principles. Still, the United States Supreme Court does not strip states of all sovereignty to pass traditional police power laws designed to protect people,” the court wrote. “Wilson has standing to challenge HRS § 134-25(a) and § 134-27(a). But those laws do not violate his federal constitutional rights.”
The court also ruled Wilson had no standing to challenge the state’s gun-carry permitting law because he had not applied for a permit, despite the case stemming from a time before the Bruen ruling when Hawaii did not issue permits to regular civilians.
