The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down Hawaii's requirement that licensed gun owners obtain permission before carrying firearms onto private property open to the public, a policy gun-rights advocates called the "vampire rule." In a 6-3 decision in Wolford v. Lopez, the Court found the state's reliance on a Reconstruction-era Black Code to defend the restriction was improper.
Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority, called the 1865 Louisiana statute cited by Hawaii a "tainted artifact" enacted to disarm newly freed Black Americans. He concluded the law could not be seriously considered as evidence of the Second Amendment's original public meaning.
Kevin O'Grady, an attorney for the plaintiffs, criticized Hawaii's reliance on the law. "It is disgraceful that any state would rely on a law specifically aimed at taking away the Second Amendment rights or any constitutional right of Black Americans as it was at that time," O'Grady told Fox News Digital. He added that Hawaii is "diametrically opposed to the Second Amendment."
The case centered on the 2022 Bruen decision, which requires courts to evaluate firearm regulations based on their consistency with the nation's historical tradition of gun regulation. Hawaii had argued its law was consistent with historical practices, including the 1865 Louisiana statute.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, in her dissent, argued the Court bypassed a key constitutional question by dismissing the Louisiana law outright. Jackson stated the Court should have first determined if the law itself violated the Second Amendment or if the issue was its discriminatory enforcement.
"It might well be that the Black Codes are invalid inputs for Bruen's test," Jackson wrote, "but only if they violated the Second Amendment — which may or may not be the case." She argued that under the Bruen framework, the Court must examine such laws before excluding them as historical evidence.
Jackson's dissent drew sharp criticism from gun rights advocates. Hannah Hill, vice president of the National Association of Gun Rights, pointed to the Fourteenth Amendment's enactment in response to laws like the Black Codes. "That right there is your answer," Hill said. "Yes, there was a historical tradition — they enacted a constitutional amendment to fix that deprivation of rights, and that is also in the Constitution now."
Tyler Yzaguirre, president of Second Amendment Institute, echoed this sentiment, stating, "Those laws were not legitimate expressions of our Nation's constitutional tradition; they were examples of government using its power to deprive Americans of a fundamental right." He affirmed that the Court was correct to reject the notion that such laws could define the historical limits of the Second Amendment.
While businesses can still prohibit firearms by posting or enforcing a "no firearms" policy, Hawaii can no longer presume all businesses are off-limits to licensed gun owners unless explicitly permitted.