[174 / 1 / 24]
https://thereload.com/hawaii-supreme-court-rejects-major-second-amendment-rulings-in-new-gun-carry-decision/
Hawaii Supreme Court Rejects Major Second Amendment Rulings in New Gun-Carry Decision
Stephen Gutowski
February 7, 2024
11:22 pm
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 Hawaiʻi 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 Hawaiʻi 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.
Hawaii Supreme Court Rejects Major Second Amendment Rulings in New Gun-Carry Decision
Stephen Gutowski
February 7, 2024
11:22 pm
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 Hawaiʻi 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 Hawaiʻi 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.
