Supreme Court rejects case pitting the `spirit of Aloha' against gun owners' rights
The case included a swipe by a Hawaii judge at the Supreme Court's embrace of gun rights. “The thing about the old days, they the old days,” the judge said, quoting HBO's "The Wire."
WASHINGTON – Christopher Wilson had a loaded pistol in his waistband when the Maui Police Department in 2017 responded to a complaint that he was trespassing on private property.
Wilson did not, though, have a permit to carry that gun. And in a case that put a spotlight on Hawaii's strict gun regulations, as well as on its low rate of gun deaths, his challenge to the permit requirement made its way to the Supreme Court − which, in recent years, has embraced a looser approach to guns.
The Supreme Court on Monday declined to overturn a ruling in that case by Hawaii's top court. The Hawaii court had touted the state's "spirit of Aloha" that it said was in contrast to the justices' more gun-friendly record.
“The spirit of Aloha clashes with a federally-mandated lifestyle that lets citizens walk around with deadly weapons during day-to-day activities,” Hawaii Supreme Court Justice Todd Eddins wrote, defending the state’s long history of regulating deadly weapons.
Wilson had been challenging the state’s requirement that he needs permission to carry a gun in public. The Supreme Court denied his appeal.
Justice Clarence Thomas, in a statement joined by Justice Samuel Alito, said too many courts are not giving the Second Amendment proper respect.
“The decision below is the latest example,” Thomas wrote.
Still, he said, the Supreme Court may not yet be able to weigh in at this stage of the dispute. Both Thomas and Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that may be possible later on.
Wilson wanted the court to summarily throw out the ruling that the state can prosecute him.
He argued that the state Supreme Court did not apply the requirement that gun regulations be "consistent with this nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation."
The Hawaii Supreme Court said the 2022 Supreme Court test created in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen doesn’t bar states from requiring a license to publicly carry a gun.
The state’s high court also heavily criticized the U.S. Supreme Court’s “fuzzy `history and traditions’ test to evaluate laws designed to promote public safety.”
“The thing about the old days, they the old days,” Eddins wrote, borrowing a line from the HBO series “The Wire” to warn against an overreliance on the culture and laws at the time the nation was founded.
The National Association for Gun Rights told the U.S. Supreme Court such “disdain and contempt” for the justices’ past decisions is not an isolated occurrence across the nation and cannot stand.
Wilson’s lawyers said the state Supreme Court displayed “open hostility” to gun owners’ rights.
Hawaii’s attorneys said the court’s criticisms of Bruen were solely related to how Hawaii chooses to interpret its own constitution and not to its evaluation of the U.S. Constitution.
“The Hawaii Supreme Court did not flout Bruen,” they told the U.S. Supreme Court.
Hawaii’s gun restrictions have been among the toughest in the nation. The state’s rate of gun deaths is among the lowest.
The state constitution includes language nearly identical to the 2nd Amendment’s right to bear arms. The state Supreme Court said both are about militias, not an individual’s right to a weapon.
“That’s what they were thinking about long ago,” Eddins wrote. “Not someone packing a musket to the wigmaker just in case.”