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Licensed gun owners in Hawaii could face criminal charges for carrying firearms at gas stations, restaurants and grocery stores under a law the Justice Department calls “blatantly unconstitutional,” setting up a Supreme Court showdown that could affect millions of law-abiding residents of blue states.
The Justice Department filed a friend of the court brief in support of the plaintiffs suing Hawaii over a new law that curbs where people with concealed carry permits can bring their firearms, making it a misdemeanor to carry on any private property without “unambiguous written or verbal authorization” or where “clear and conspicuous signage” grants permission from the owner.
“Hawaii’s law plainly violates the Second Amendment,” Attorney General Pam Bondi announced on X.
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Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington in October. On Monday, she announced the DOJ had filed a brief in connection with a Supreme Court case challenging Hawaii’s new concealed carry restrictions. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
The core issue of Wolford v. Lopez is “whether the Second Amendment allows states to make it unlawful for concealed-carry license-holders to carry firearms on private property open to the public without the property owner’s express authorization,” according to a Justice Department brief filed with the Supreme Court Monday.
The Second Amendment is not a second-class right.
According to the Justice Department, the Hawaii law is in conflict with the Supreme Court’s 2022 New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen decision, which found that strict permitting rules for concealed carry licenses violated the Second Amendment.
In New York, for example, applicants needed to prove that they had a special situation that necessitated a firearm for self-defense in public, such as having received active threats or carrying large sums of cash as part of their business.
Read the brief:
Hawaii’s new law, enacted after the Bruen decision, “effectively nullifies” newly available concealed carry licenses, according to the Justice Department brief.
“They realized they couldn’t do anything about not providing concealed carry permits, so instead they just made it illegal to carry in certain areas,” said David Katz, a former DEA agent and federal firearms instructor who is now the CEO of Global Security Group. “This is common to these anti-Second Amendment states.”
Katz, whose company is certified to teach concealed carry in New York and other states, said laws like Hawaii’s are designed to continue to limit lawful carrying despite the Bruen decision, something the Justice Department took notice of.
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“Hawaii’s restriction is blatantly unconstitutional as applied to private property open to the public,” the DOJ brief reads. “States cannot evade Bruen by banning public carry through indirect means.”
A man draws a Glock .45 from an inside-the-waistband holster under his leather jacket. Under Hawaii’s new concealed carry rules, law-abiding gun owners cannot bring firearms to privately owned property that is open to the public without express permission to do so. (iStock)
Just like Bruen, which began in New York, impacted similarly restrictive laws around the country, the outcome of Wolford v. Lopez will, too.
“It’s not just Hawaii that is effectively banning public carry,” Bondi wrote on X. “California, Maryland, New Jersey, and New York have similar laws. So a win in this case will restore Second Amendment rights for millions of Americans.”
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New York City Councilwoman Inna Vernikov is pictured at an anti-Israel rally in Brooklyn. She was charged with unlawful possession of a firearm after images showed a handgun protruding from her waistband, but prosecutors were forced to drop the charges. (Inna Vernikov/X)
The national implications were quick to draw responses from Republican lawmakers in blue states.
Irina Vernikov, a New York City councilwoman who was charged with unlawful possession of a firearm after bringing a licensed handgun to a pro-Israel rally in 2023 amid a spike in antisemitic hate crimes in New York City, thanked Bondi for intervening in the Hawaii case.
“[The Second Amendment] is our constitutional right, and no state should be able to take that right away from us or restrict it so much that it’s rendered useless,” she wrote on X Tuesday.
“New York State makes it impossible to carry a lawfully obtained firearm in the very places someone, especially a woman, needs it most for protection/self-defense,” Vernikov added. “Worse, some of New York’s restrictions makes law-abiding citizens who train and get licensed to carry into felons, while actual felons roam free on our streets.”
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The charges against Vernikov were ultimately dropped because the weapon in her waistband during the rally was not only not loaded, but she had also removed key components in advance, making it inoperable.
If she did need it for self-defense, she couldn’t have fired it.