WASHINGTON, June 25 (DC Times Online) — The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down Hawaii’s law requiring concealed-carry permit holders to get a property owner’s permission before entering certain privately owned places open to the public, ruling 6-3 that the measure violated the Second Amendment.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority in Wolford v. Lopez and said Hawaii’s law “violates the constitutional right to keep and bear arms.” He also wrote that it “hobble[s] what the Second Amendment protects: the right of Americans to carry arms for self-defense as they go about their daily lives.”
The decision voids Hawaii’s so-called “vampire rule,” which had required permission before lawful gun owners could bring firearms onto covered private property. The court’s majority was conservative, with three liberal justices dissenting.
The ruling adds to the court’s modern gun-rights cases, including District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008, which struck down Washington, D.C.’s handgun ban, and McDonald v. City of Chicago in 2010, which extended the Second Amendment right to state and local governments.
The court has now added another major limit on how far states can go in regulating where licensed gun owners may carry firearms.
