Wolford v. Lopez
The Court struck down Hawaii's law requiring licensed gun carriers to get a business or property owner's express, affirmative permission before carrying a firearm onto private property open to the public, ruling it violates the Second and Fourteenth Amendments.
The decision reinforces that states cannot use property-law default rules to effectively re-create the kind of broad public-carry restrictions the Court already struck down in Bruen, and it means Hawaii's licensed gun owners no longer need a landowner's explicit sign-off to enter ordinary businesses while armed.
How it got here: A federal trial court partly enjoined the law; the Ninth Circuit reversed that injunction and denied rehearing en banc; the Supreme Court agreed to review.
The Case in Depth
What happened
After the Supreme Court's 2022 Bruen decision forced Hawaii to start issuing concealed-carry permits, the State passed a new law making it a crime for a permit holder to carry a gun onto private property open to the public — like a store or restaurant — unless the owner expressly said guns were welcome. Three Maui County permit holders and a gun-rights organization sued, arguing this flipped-default rule made it nearly impossible to lawfully carry a firearm anywhere in daily life.
The question before the Court
Could Hawaii require licensed gun owners to get a property owner's express permission before carrying a handgun onto private property that's otherwise open to the public?
The Court's answer
No — the Court ruled that Hawaii could not require gun owners to obtain a property owner's express, affirmative permission before carrying a handgun onto private property open to the public. Because carrying a handgun for self-defense is protected by the Second Amendment's plain text, Hawaii's law triggered a presumption of unconstitutionality, and the State had to show its rule matched a historical tradition of similar firearm regulation.
Hawaii pointed to old colonial anti-poaching laws and a Reconstruction-era Louisiana statute, but the Court found none of these close enough: the poaching laws targeted hunting on land where game was found, not everyday businesses, and the Louisiana law was part of a discriminatory Black Code that was never widespread or accepted. Without a valid historical match, Hawaii's law failed and was struck down.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Hawaii's roughly four hundred concealed-carry permit holders will no longer face potential criminal liability just for entering a gas station, restaurant, or store without first tracking down someone authorized to say yes to guns. The ruling also signals to other states with similar 'no carry unless invited' default rules that those laws are vulnerable to the same constitutional challenge.
What changes now
The case returns to the lower courts for further proceedings consistent with the Court's ruling, meaning Hawaii can no longer enforce its express-consent requirement for private property open to the public. This is a final merits decision, not a temporary order, though enforcement details and any narrower property-specific rules Hawaii might try to craft could still generate further litigation.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide whether Hawaii's separate list of 'sensitive place' gun bans (schools, banks, hospitals, etc.) is constitutional, nor whether property owners can still exclude armed visitors from their own property — they can. It also left open whether Reconstruction-era laws are relevant evidence for Second Amendment cases generally.
Concurrences and dissents
How the Justices voted
Majority (6). Justice Alito (author), joined by Justice Roberts, Justice Thomas, Justice Gorsuch, Justice Kavanaugh, and Justice Barrett.
Dissent (3). Justice Kagan (author), joined by Justice Sotomayor.
Concurrence — Justice Barrett
Justice Barrett agreed fully with the majority but wrote separately to explain why history belongs at Bruen's second step, not its first, and to walk through in more detail why neither the colonial anti-poaching laws nor the Reconstruction-era Black Codes share a historical justification with Hawaii's law. She stressed that mere public disapproval of gun-carrying is not a valid basis for restricting a constitutional right.
Dissent — Justice Kagan
Justice Kagan would have upheld Hawaii's law as a modern analogue of colonial-era laws restricting armed entry onto private property, agreeing with Justice Jackson's historical analysis. She argued the 'why' of the old and new laws is close enough because both address dangers from armed people on others' property, and the old laws' focus on poaching doesn't defeat that similarity.
Dissent — Justice Jackson
“This case is about property rights, not gun rights.”The core of Justice Jackson's argument that the law never implicated the Second Amendment at all.
Justice Jackson argued the case is fundamentally about property rights, not gun rights, because there has never been a constitutional right to enter private property armed without the owner's consent, so Hawaii's law shouldn't even trigger Second Amendment scrutiny. She also argued that even under the majority's framework, Hawaii's historical analogues sufficiently match in both method and purpose, and criticized the majority for arbitrarily excluding Reconstruction-era Black Codes from the historical analysis. Read the full dissent →
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court applied the two-step framework from Bruen: first ask whether the challenged law restricts conduct covered by the Second Amendment's plain text, and if so, treat the law as presumptively unconstitutional unless the government shows it fits the nation's historical tradition of gun regulation.
- At the first step, the Court found the plain-text question easily satisfied — the permit holders are part of 'the people' and want to 'bear' 'arms,' so Hawaii's law restricting where they can carry falls within the Amendment's coverage and triggers the presumption of unconstitutionality.
- At the second step, the Court weighed Hawaii's proposed historical analogues — old laws it said were similar enough to justify the modern rule — using Bruen's test of whether the old laws' 'how' (the way they restricted arms) and 'why' (their underlying purpose) match the modern law.
- The Court rejected Hawaii's argument that local custom or the state's own history of restricting guns could redefine the Second Amendment's scope, reasoning that the Amendment means the same thing in every state regardless of local attitudes.
- The Court found Hawaii's colonial-era anti-poaching statutes too dissimilar because they targeted unauthorized hunting on land where game was found, not everyday commercial establishments, and had little connection to the Amendment's core purpose of self-defense.
- The Court also rejected an 1893 Oregon law and an 1865 Louisiana Black Code provision as analogues, the former because it was an isolated, late-adopted outlier of uncertain scope, and the latter because it was neither widespread nor well-accepted and originated from a discriminatory scheme to disarm freed Black Americans.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen (597 U. S. 1)
The Court applies and elaborates Bruen's two-step historical test to strike down Hawaii's law.
Reaffirms District of Columbia v. Heller (554 U. S. 570)
The Court relies on Heller's holding that the Second Amendment protects an individual right rooted in history.
Reaffirms McDonald v. Chicago (561 U. S. 742)
The Court reaffirms that the Second Amendment applies uniformly to all states, rejecting Hawaii's local-custom argument.