Supreme Court To Decide If Hawaii Firearms Owners Can Carry on Private Property Without Owner’s Permission
The plaintiffs say the current law makes it ‘impossible as a practical matter to carry a firearm for lawful self-defense.’
The Supreme Court will take up a major Second Amendment case regarding whether firearm owners need permission to carry their guns onto private property.
The high court agreed on Friday to hear the case Wolford v. Lopez, with oral arguments expected early in 2026. At issue is Hawaii’s 2023 law that prohibits firearm owners from carrying their guns onto private property without explicit permission from the property owner.
The prohibition extends to properties that are readily accessible to the public, such as hotels or stores. Under the previous legal standard in Hawaii, firearm owners could bring their guns into such locations unless the property owners declared they could not.
The state also bans people from bringing guns to “sensitive places” such as beaches or bars.
The 2023 law that was passed after the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen decision a year earlier affirmed the right of Americans to carry firearms outside of the home for self-defense.
Hawaii and other states, such as New York and California, passed laws after that ruling to restrict where Americans could carry firearms. Three firearm owners in Hawaii, as well as the Hawaii Firearms Coalition, successfully challenged the 2023 law. However, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed that decision.
The plaintiffs appealed to the Supreme Court, saying that the Ninth Circuit’s decision made it “impossible as a practical matter to carry a firearm for lawful self-defense in Hawaii.”
The Trump administration filed an amicus brief urging the high court to take up the case. The solicitor general, John Sauer, said, “Someone carrying a firearm for self-defense cannot run errands without fear of criminal sanctions.”
An organization that advocates for more gun restrictions, Everytown Law, criticized the challenge. The managing director of Second Amendment litigation at Everytown Law, Janet Carter, said in a statement that Hawaii’s law “respects people’s right to be safe on their own property, and we urge the Supreme Court to uphold it.”
A decision in the case is expected by July.
