Imagine if your freedom of speech applied only with a store owner’s express permission, or if your right to worship disappeared the moment you entered a public park. That’s the logic behind a Hawaii law that bans gun carry preemptively on private property and in so-called “sensitive places” like restaurants and beaches.
This isn’t speculation. It’s reality for residents and travelers in Hawaii, where a recent state law, now upheld by the Ninth Circuit, rewrites the Second Amendment as a conditional privilege. Under Act 52, law-abiding citizens must secure prior authorization to exercise a constitutional right in places as ordinary as a public park or a restaurant.
That’s not how constitutional rights work. They are not permissions granted by government or property owners. They are guarantees that government is bound to protect. The right to keep and bear arms, like free speech or prayer, does not originate in statute; it is inalienable and existed long before the Constitution. The Constitution’s role is to protect that right from government infringement, not to grant or permit it.
And that is why Idaho and Montana are leading a coalition with 24 other states urging the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.
To be clear, this is not about targeting Hawaii. We are not interested in political theater. We are involved because Hawaii’s Act 52 is now the test case in a legal battle over whether states can nullify constitutional rights through regulatory presumption. After the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, all states were directed to align their firearm laws with the historical tradition of gun regulation in America. Hawaii’s response was to sidestep that guidance and draft a law that, while avoiding outright bans, renders public carry nearly impossible in practice.
When challenged, the Ninth Circuit upheld that law. But in doing so, it created a direct conflict with the Second Circuit, which had struck down a nearly identical framework in Antonyuk v. James. Two federal appellate courts reached opposing conclusions on the same constitutional issue.
That’s why we filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court. Latin for “friend of the court,” an amicus brief allows states like ours, who though are not parties to the original lawsuit, to weigh in on questions with national impact. We are urging the Court to resolve this conflict because the meaning of the Second Amendment must remain consistent across the nation and not shift with state borders or circuit court lines.
The Court in Bruen made clear that firearm restrictions must be historically grounded, not the product of legislative innovation. Hawaii’s law relies on obscure and discriminatory historical examples, like anti-poaching rules and post-Civil War disarmament statutes. These do not reflect America’s longstanding tradition of recognizing the right of citizens to carry arms in public. Rather, they are exceptions that prove the rule.
But the stakes extend far beyond this one law. If states can use legislative presumptions to nullify a constitutional right, then the entire framework of the Bill of Rights is at risk. Today it’s the Second Amendment. Tomorrow it could be speech, prayer, or assembly.
The Constitution is not a permission slip for government; it is a restriction on it. It was written to protect individual liberty by setting clear limits on what government may do, not to provide states or federal officials with discretion over which rights to respect. The Bill of Rights makes this restraint explicit. It is not a list of suggestions for states to pick and choose from; it is a binding guarantee that applies everywhere, to every American. Its protections do not pause at a state border or disappear at the door of a business.
As Attorneys General, we are sworn to uphold the Constitution, not to allow it to be redefined away by clever statutory design. The Supreme Court must take this case and affirm what the Framers wrote and what the people have always understood: that the right to bear arms belongs to the people, and that no state may presume otherwise.
Raul Labrador is the Attorney General of Idaho. Austin Knudsen is the Attorney General of Montana.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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