The highest court in the country heard arguments against a Hawai‘i gun control law on Tuesday.
In 2023, Hawai‘i amended its gun control laws to include a rule referred to as the “vampire rule”: in much the same way that a vampire cannot enter a home without first being invited, the law prohibits people from bringing concealed firearms onto private property without the clear consent of the property owner.
Other places prohibited by the law include beaches, parks and restaurants that serve alcohol.
Gun advocates quickly challenged the new law, with three Maui residents — Jason and Alison Wolford and Atom Kasprzycki — along with nonprofit Hawai‘i Firearms Coalition filing a suit that, eventually, reached the U.S. Supreme Court.
All three individual plaintiffs possess licenses to carry concealed handguns and, according to court filings, have been able to carry concealed firearms on private properties such as beaches, parks and restaurants without issue.
Attorney Alan Beck, representing the plaintiffs, told the Supreme Court on Tuesday that Hawai‘i has “run roughshod” over the Second Amendment without sufficient precedent to justify the law.
On the other side of the argument, attorney Neal Katyal said “there is no constitutional right to assume that every invitation to enter private property includes an invitation to bring a gun.”
A sizable chunk of Tuesday’s discussion revolved around whether Hawai‘i's law has any precedent: whether any state had ever imposed their own prohibitions against the carry of firearms onto private property without the owner’s consent.
According to Hawai‘i's court filings, those laws existed: an 1865 law in Louisiana and a New Jersey law enacted in 1771, more than a decade before New Jersey even became a state.
But Beck raised concerns with these examples. The Louisiana law was part of America’s infamous “Black Codes,” law passed immediately following the abolition of slavery to impose restrictions on newly freed Black citizens.
“It is somewhat astonishing that Black Codes which are unconstitutional are being offered as evidence of what our tradition of constitutionally permissible firearm regulation looks like,” Beck said.
And, apart from the fact that the law predates the country itself, Beck said the New Jersey law was an anti-poaching measure focused on preventing the use of guns on specific enclosed lands.
However, while Katyal agreed that the Black Codes arose from “a shameful period,” he said they still carry important legal precedence.
The Court did not issue a verdict on Tuesday, but one is expected in the coming months.
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