WASHINGTON, June 25 (DC Times Online) — The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down Hawaii’s law that required concealed-carry permit holders to get a property owner’s consent before entering certain private places open to the public, ruling 6-3 that the measure conflicted with 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 the rule “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 barred lawful gun owners from carrying on covered private property unless the owner allowed it. NBC News reported that the court’s three liberal justices dissented.
The ruling adds to the court’s earlier Second Amendment cases, including District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008, which struck down Washington’s handgun ban, and McDonald v. City of Chicago in 2010, which applied the right to keep and bear arms to state and local governments.
