Hawai‘i residents between the ages of 18 and 21 should be allowed to own guns, argues a federal lawsuit.
In 2024, two Hawai‘i teenagers and two Hawai‘i gun stores sued the state Attorney General, Anne Lopez, in U.S. District Court, challenging a state law prohibiting the sale of guns to people ages 18 to 20.
The lawsuit names as plaintiffs The Second Amendment Foundation — a Washington-based organization that pursues lawsuits challenging gun restrictions nationwide — and four SAF members in Hawai‘i: 19-year old Elijah Pinales, 18-year-old Juda Roache, Honolulu gun store Danger Close Tactical and Lana‘i gun store JGB Arms.
On Wednesday, the plaintiffs filed in U.S. Circuit Court a motion for summary judgment in the case, urging the court to find that Hawai‘i's age limit on gun ownership violates the Second Amendment.
The motion states that, under federal law, Pinales and Roache should be able to legally purchase and own firearms, and Danger Close Tactical and JGB Arms should be able to sell firearms to them, but state laws make this illegal.
Kevin O’Grady, attorney for the plaintiffs, told Aloha State Daily that similar age limits have been successfully challenged in other states, but added that Hawai‘i’s restrictions are more stringent.
“Hawai‘i is the only one to have a complete ban,” O’Grady said. For example, a law in Minnesota that was overturned in 2024 only banned people under the age of 21 from carrying handguns in public, while Hawai‘i's laws outright prohibit the issuing of firearm permits to anyone under the age of 21.
O’Grady said the ban was established in the 1990s, although a bill passed last year also banned the sale of ammunition to anyone under the age of 21.
With the filing of the motion, O’Grady said the state is now left to prove that the ban does not violate the Second Amendment by establishing that there were laws set in place at the time of the founding of the U.S. that functionally imposed the same ban.
While legal challenges against age restrictions have been successful in Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Texas, O’Grady said courts in Virginia and Georgia have upheld age restrictions.
“They said that, at the time of the founding, that minors couldn’t [sign a] contract,” O’Grady said, adding that he believes the courts missed the context of the laws in the 1700s, which he said instead made contracts with minors voidable in order to protect them from entering into exploitative deals.
Even so, O’Grady said, laws in the 1700s still allowed minors to enter into contracts for necessities.
“If you’re a hunter who needed a gun to hunt, a gun was a necessity,” O’Grady said. “If you needed a gun for militia service, a gun was a necessity.”
Complicating matters further is the fact that, at the time of the founding, the age of majority was still 21, O’Grady said. With the age of minority lower now, he said, a centuries-old law intended to restrict the rights of minors doesn’t support prohibiting gun ownership by people 18 years or older today.
The motion sets a trial date in July 2026, although O’Grady said the court may rule on the matter beforehand.
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