“We should make clear that Americans are always free to invoke the Second Amendment as a defense against unconstitutional firearms-licensing schemes.”
The Supreme Court missed an opportunity Monday to reiterate the ascendancy of the Second Amendment over local culture and quash Hawaii’s “spirit of Aloha” ruling that rejected the essential right to bear arms when they declined intervene in a case that challenged the state's ban on carrying firearms in public without a permit.
In February, the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that the “spirit of Aloha clashes with a federally-mandated lifestyle that lets citizens walk around with deadly weapons during day-to-day activities,” the Daily Caller reported. The ruling, written by Justice Todd Eddins, insisted that states "retain the authority to require" citizens to first get permits before carrying guns in public and that the Hawaiian Constitution does explicitly protect the "right to carry firearms in public places for self-defense."
“In Hawaii, there is no state constitutional right to carry a firearm in public,” the state court ruled.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito explained on Monday that the need to correct the Hawaiian court’s apparent error “must await another day.” Though Thomas, Alito and Neil Gorsuch faulted the Hawaiian court for its ruling, they said they could not proceed to correct the judgment right now because the defendant who precipitated the decision still must be tried on other charges. Police arrested Christopher Wilson in 2017 for trespassing on private property while in possession of a pistol for which he did not have a license.
“Wilson moved to dismiss only some of his charges, most notably leaving for trial a trespassing charge on which his Second Amendment defense has no bearing,” Thomas wrote in a statement joined by Justice Samuel Alito. “He thus seeks review of an interlocutory order over which we may not have jurisdiction.”
But Thomas noted that the Hawaii Supreme Court would have ruled that its state licensing rules were “unconstitutional and upheld the dismissal of Wilson’s public-carry charges” if it had been guided by the US Supreme Court’s Second Amendment jurisprudence.
“I agree with the Court’s decision to deny certiorari in this posture,” Thomas wrote. “In an appropriate case, however, we should make clear that Americans are always free to invoke the Second Amendment as a defense against unconstitutional firearms-licensing schemes.” Gorsuch also suggested the ruling could be assessed at a later date if Hawaii Supreme Court proceeded as expected.
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