Supreme Court and Second Amendment

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared poised Tuesday to strike down Hawaii’s law that presumptively bans guns in stores, malls, hotels and other public‑facing private property unless owners explicitly allow them, a regime critics call a "vampire rule" because it requires affirmative permission to carry. During oral arguments in a challenge backed by the Trump administration, justices repeatedly questioned whether the state can treat the Second Amendment differently from other rights, with Justice Samuel Alito warning that Hawaii was relegating gun rights to "second‑class status." Hawaii defended the statute as a way to protect property owners’ control over their premises, noting it began granting thousands of concealed‑carry permits only after the Court’s 2022 Bruen decision expanded public carry rights. A ruling against Hawaii would not disturb separate state bans on guns in places like parks, beaches or restaurants that serve alcohol, but it would likely invalidate similar default no‑carry rules in several other states and further tighten the Court’s new history‑and‑tradition test for gun regulations. The decision, expected by late June, will be a key marker of how far the justices are willing to push states to accommodate public carry in everyday commercial spaces.