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 consent before entering certain private businesses open to the public, ruling 6-3 in Wolford v. Lopez.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority that Hawaii’s rule “violates the constitutional right to keep and bear arms.” He also said the law “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 majority was conservative, and three liberal justices dissented, according to reporting on the decision.
The Hawaii measure, sometimes called the state’s “vampire rule,” had required gun owners to obtain permission before carrying firearms onto covered private property unless the owner posted signs allowing it. The ruling adds to a line of Supreme Court Second Amendment cases that includes District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008 and McDonald v. City of Chicago in 2010, which recognized and applied an individual right to keep and bear arms.
