Overview
- The justices heard arguments in Wolford v. Lopez over Hawaii’s rule requiring explicit owner consent before licensed carriers bring guns onto private property open to the public.
- Several conservatives questioned the law’s historical basis, with comments from Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Justice Samuel Alito suggesting the policy treats the Second Amendment as a lesser right.
- Hawaii defended the statute as codifying owners’ right to exclude firearms and pointed to historical analogues, while challengers and the U.S. Justice Department called those examples outliers that cannot justify a broad default ban.
- The measure, enacted in 2023 as Act 52, makes violations a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail and was largely upheld by the Ninth Circuit after a district court initially blocked parts of it.
- The Court limited the case to the default-consent provision, and its decision could influence similar consent rules in California, New York, New Jersey and Maryland under the Bruen history-and-tradition test.