Supreme Court strikes down another gun regulation

The Supreme Court has issued another Second Amendment ruling, finding that Hawaii cannot enforce a law that prevents gun-owners from entering private property with their guns without the property owner's express authorization. 

The case is Wolford v. Lopez, issued on June 25. This is another 6-3 ruling that applies the Bruen decision, issued by the Court in 2022, and which makes it much more difficult to enact and enforce gun laws. Under Bruen, gun laws are unconstitutional under the Second Amendment unless the government can prove there is a historical analogue the law dating to the country's founding. This is a complex constitutional formula, and may be the most "originalist" interpretation of the Constitution we've seen from the Supreme Court. Bruen requires that lawyers and judges review laws dating to the Eighteenth Century in determining if today's laws comport with laws that were in place back in 1791.

Justice Alito says the Hawaii law "departs sharply from the standard common law rule on access to private property held open to the public. Under that rule, everyone, including those lawfully carrying firearms, may enter unless expressly prohibited from doing so. By contrast, under the new Hawaii law, no one carrying a firearm may enter without the property owner's express authorization. The effect of the new rule is to impose severe restrictions on the daily activities of residents who have satisfied the State's rigorous requirements for the issuance of a carry permit."

The majority considers the practical application of the Hawaii rule: when Johnny-citizen leaves the house in the morning, he must   

When these permit holders leave home in the morning, not only must they take care to avoid all the territory where the possession of a gun is prohibited outright, but they may also be barred from entering many places that people routinely visit in the course of their daily routines, such as gas stations, convenience stores, restaurants, coffee shops, drug stores, grocery stores, “big box” stores, home improvement stores, barber shops or hair salons, dry cleaners, and laundromats. 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. 

In dissent, writing for the three Democratic-appointed Justices, Justice Jackson sees the case very differently. "To hear the majority tell it, Hawaii’s law is a blatant attempt to end-run our Second Amendment precedents. But the statute at issue does no such thing. Instead, it fairly applies a first principle of property law—the right to exclude—and does no harm to the Second Amendment."