Hawaii Supreme Court Claims the Supreme Court’s Bruen and Heller Decisions were Incorrectly Decided

We reject Wilson’s constitutional challenges. Conventional interpretive modalities and Hawaiʻi’s historical tradition of firearm regulation rule out an individual right to keep and bear arms under the Hawaiʻi Constitution. In Hawaiʻi, there is no state constitutional right to carry a firearm in public.

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Bruen snubs federalism principles. Still, the United States Supreme Court does not strip states of all sovereignty to pass traditional police power laws designed to protect people. Wilson has standing to challenge HRS § 134-25(a) and § 134- 27(a). But those laws do not violate his federal constitutional rights. . . .

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We conclude that the authors and ratifiers of the Hawaiʻi Constitution imagined a collective right. Our understanding aligns with what the Second Amendment meant in 1950 when Hawaiʻi copied the federal constitution’s language. . . .

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Those laws do not violate Wilson’s constitutional rights under article I, section 17 or the Second Amendment.

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State of Hawaii v. Wilson, Supreme Court of the State of Hawaii, February 7, 2024.

One wonders if the Hawaii Supreme Court is trying to get the U.S. Supreme Court to overrule their decision. It is gutsy for a state Supreme Court to say that the U.S. Supreme Court got its decisions in Bruen and Heller wrong. The Hawaii Court ruled that there wasn’t an individual right to own a gun for self-defense, that there is only a “collective right,” and that Hawaii’s concealed handgun laws can effectively ban people carrying guns for protection. The Hawaii court’s decision is available here.