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 permission before entering certain privately owned places open to the public, ruling 6-3 that it violated the Second Amendment.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority in Wolford v. Lopez that Hawaii’s law “violates the constitutional right to keep and bear arms.” The court said the state could not impose a default ban on carrying guns on such property unless owners specifically allowed it.
The ruling invalidates Hawaii’s so-called “vampire rule,” a label used for laws that make public-access private property off-limits to lawful gun carriers unless permission is given.
Three liberal justices dissented.
The decision adds to the Supreme Court’s modern Second Amendment line, 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.
