The Hawaii law at issue here violates the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. Therefore, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Wolford v. Lopez
U.S. Supreme Court
June 25, 2026
Why is this case important?
Wolford v. Lopez confirms that the mere presence of a firearm inside a privately owned business does not, standing alone, establish reasonable suspicion or probable cause that a crime has occurred. Officers must have some objective basis to believe that carrying the firearm violates state law or the property owner’s policy, such as posted signage, notice from the owner, or refusal to leave after being directed to do so.
Note: The U.S. Supreme Court required seventy-six pages to write the decision. This article has redacted much of what the court wrote and is focused on the salient facts and legal analyses.
AI created image of Wolford v. Lopez.
Background
For years, the State of Hawaii made it almost impossible to obtain a license to carry a firearm. Four years ago, however, this Court held in New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U. S. 1 (2022), that the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect the right to carry handguns outside the home for self-defense. Hawaii responded by replacing its old law on carry permits with new laws that achieved a similar result. On a large portion of the land within the State’s boundaries, possession of a firearm is now flatly prohibited. And the law now before us severely burdens the ability to carry a firearm in much of the rest of the State by prohibiting firearms on private property without the express and affirmative consent of the property owner.
[U]nder the new Hawaii law, no one carrying a firearm may enter without the property owner’s express authorization.
This law departs sharply from the standard common-law rule on access to private property held open to the public. Under that rule, everyone, including those lawfully carrying firearms, may enter unless expressly prohibited from doing so. By contrast, under the new Hawaii law, no one carrying a firearm may enter without the property owner’s express authorization. The effect of this new rule is to impose severe restrictions on the daily activities of residents who have satisfied the State’s rigorous requirements for the issuance of a carry permit. When these permit holders leave home in the morning, not only must they take care to avoid all the territory where the possession of a gun is prohibited outright, but they may also be barred from entering many places that people routinely visit in the course of their daily routines, such as gas stations, convenience stores, restaurants, coffee shops, drug stores, grocery stores, “big box” stores, home improvement stores, barber shops or hair salons, dry cleaners, and laundromats.
Spoiler Alert “We hold that the law is unconstitutional.”
This regime hobbles what the Second Amendment protects: the right of Americans to carry arms for self-defense as they go about their daily lives. We hold that the law is unconstitutional.
Established Case Law – Firearms
After McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010), 12 years elapsed before the Court’s next major Second Amendment decision: Bruen. In the interim, lower courts rejected nearly all Second Amendment claims based on reasoning that resembled that in Justice Breyer’s Heller dissent. See Bruen, 597 U. S., at 18–19, 26.
In Bruen, we considered one such decision, which upheld a New York law that severely restricted the right to carry a handgun outside the home for self-defense. In doing so, we fleshed out the process of historical analysis required in a Second Amendment case.
Bruen Three Part Test
That analysis, we held, involves two steps. First, a court must determine whether the law before it clashes with the “plain text” of the Amendment’s language. Id., at 24. This inquiry entails three subsidiary questions. First, does the law apply to “the people”—which is to say, to “all members of the political community”? Heller, 554 U. S., at 580. Second, does it concern any form of “Arms,” i.e., any weapon customarily used for offensive or defensive purposes? See id., at 584. Third, does the law place any restrictions on either the “keep[ing]” (i.e., possession) or the “bear[ing]” (i.e., carrying) of arms? See Bruen, 597 U. S., at 32–33.
If a challenged law falls within the plain text of the Second Amendment, it is presumptively unconstitutional.
If a challenged law falls within the plain text of the Second Amendment, it is presumptively unconstitutional, id., at 24—which means that it may violate the preexisting right that the Amendment codified. But because that right was not in every way coterminous with the Amendment’s literal language, further analysis may be needed. Specifically, the relevant government—federal, state, or local— may be able to show that its challenged law did not infringe the historical understanding of the codified right.
Note: Coterminous means two or more entities that share the same boundaries.
In Eighteen Years (!) Hawaii ONLY issued four CCW Licenses – FOUR!
With this background in mind, we turn to the Hawaii law challenged in this case. Before Bruen, Hawaii issued firearms carry licenses only in “exceptional case[s].” Haw. Rev. Stat. §§134–2 (Cum. Supp. 2018), 134–9(a) (2011). Indeed, it appears that from 2000 to 2018, only four such licenses were issued. See Young v. Hawaii, 896 F. 3d 1044, 1071, n. 21 (CA9 2018), reh’g en banc, 992 F. 3d 765 (2021), cert. granted, judgt. vacated, 597 U. S. 916 (2022). After Bruen, Hawaii and four of the other five States called out by our decision adopted a new method of restricting law-abiding citizens from carrying firearms for self-defense by flipping the default rule on private property open to the public.
Property Rights from the 1800’s
At common law, opening up private property to the general public implies a “license to all persons to enter,” meaning that “no person is a trespasser by merely entering therein” unless the property owner has given “due notice” that such a person is banned. Commonwealth v. Power, 48 Mass. 596, 602 (1844); see also, e.g., State v. Steele, 106 N. C. 766, 780–783, 11 S. E. 478, 484–485 (1890); Barney v. Oyster Bay & Huntington Steamboat Co., 67 N. Y. 301, 302– 303 (1876); Jencks v. Coleman, 13 F. Cas. 442, 443–444 (No. 7,258), (CC RI 1835) (Story, J.).
The Hawaiian Flip
After Bruen, Hawaii and four other States singled out in that decision flipped this default rule. Rather than allowing all to enter private property open to the public unless specifically prohibited, these new laws provided that no one carrying a firearm may enter without express authorization. See Cal. Penal Code Ann. §26230(a)(26) (West Supp. 2026); Haw. Rev. Stat. §134–9.5(a) (2023); Md. Crim. Law Code Ann. §6–411(d) (Supp. 2025); N. J. Stat. Ann. §2C:58– 4.6(a)(24) (West 2024); N. Y. Penal Law Ann. §265.01–d(1) (West 2025).
What is and What is Not essential character or temperament necessary to be entrusted with a firearm?
Hawaii’s new default rule is part of a tight web of laws that severely restricts the carrying of firearms for self-defense. To start, carrying a handgun for self-defense requires a special license, and obtaining that license is a rigorous process. Haw. Rev. Stat. §134–9. Applicants must first complete a detailed application that requires the disclosure of medical information. §134–9(g).8 They must then successfully complete an extensive training course in which they demonstrate competency in firearm safety and live-fire shooting, as well as an understanding of the law and available mental-health resources. §§134–9(d), (e). And they must demonstrate the “essential character or temperament necessary to be entrusted with a firearm.” §134–9(h).
The Hawaiian CCW Law Permits Residents to Carry a Concealed Weapon so long as the Resident Does not Go Anywhere
But even for those who fulfill these stringent requirements, Hawaii imposes two additional restrictions on carrying firearms. The first bans the possession of a firearm in significant categories of places: “[a]ny [state-owned] building” or “adjacent grounds and parking areas”; “[a]ny public or private hospital” or “other place at which medical or health services are customarily provided”; any “restaurant serving alcohol”; any “stadium, movie theater, or concert hall”; any “public library property”; “any public or private” college or university; “any public school, charter school,” or private school; any “beach, playground,” or park; “any bank or financial institution”; any “amusement park, aquarium, carnival, circus, fair, museum, water park, or zoo”; and any “public gathering, public assembly, or special event conducted on property open to the public.” §134– 9.1(a).9 Some of these places are owned by the State, but many of the categories include privately owned property. So even if the owner of such a place wanted to admit individuals who are carrying a gun for self-defense, the owner could not do so.
The second restriction—the one at issue in this case— generally prohibits licensed individuals from carrying a firearm, even if unloaded or inoperable, “on private property of another.” §134–9.5(a). Certain categories of individuals, such as police officers, are exempt, §§134–9.5(d), 134– 11(a), but the ban otherwise applies unless “express authorization” has been given “by the owner, lessee, operator, or manager of the property,” §134–9.5(a). Such authorization must take one of two forms: “clear and conspicuous signage” that confers such consent or “[u]nambiguous written or verbal authorization” to carry a firearm on the premises from “the owner, lessee, operator, or manager of the property” or an agent of such a person. §134–9.5(b).
A Federal District Court Judge Stops Hawaii from its’ Unconstitutional Law
Petitioners—three residents of Maui County who possess concealed-carry permits and an organizational plaintiff with members who have such permits—contend that these restrictions violate their rights under the U. S. Constitution, and they filed suit in federal court, seeking both temporary and permanent injunctive relief. The District Court declined such relief with respect to private property that is closed to the public, but it enjoined enforcement of the new default rule as applied to private property that is open to the public.
The Ninth Circuit’s Frequent Flyer Miles to the Supreme Court
A panel of the Ninth Circuit reversed that injunction, and the full Ninth Circuit denied rehearing en banc. Judge VanDyke, joined by five other judges, issued an opinion dissenting from the denial of rehearing en banc. 125 F. 4th 1230, 1231 (2025). Judge Collins, joined by Judge Bress, likewise filed a dissent. Ibid. We granted certiorari to decide whether Hawaii may prohibit licensed concealed-carry permit holders from carrying handguns on private property open to the public unless the property owner gives express permission. 606 U. S. 1066 (2025).
Hawaii’s Tainted Legal Artifacts
The U.S. Supreme went on a long trek of historical case law involving firearms that led the majority opinion to conclude: Unless we put history entirely out of our minds, Hawaii’s claim that this tainted artifact illuminates the original understanding of the right to keep and bear arms cannot be taken seriously.
Conclusion and Holding
Aloha Means Goodbye to Hawaii’s Unconstitutional Firearms Law
The Hawaii law at issue here violates the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. Therefore, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Concurring Opinion Information
Note: In a concurring opinion written by Justice Barrett and signed on by Justice Thomas and Justice Gorsuch they opined:
Hawaii is responding to the general danger associated with the presence of firearms, not to any specific, heightened risk of their misuse.
So the problem with Hawaii’s default rule is not that it targets a regulatory problem besides poaching. It is that the rule does not target any particular abuse of firearms at all. Rather than identifying a specific threat to public peace and safety, Hawaii admits that it enacted the rule because many of its citizens oppose the public carry of guns. In other words, Hawaii is responding to the general danger associated with the presence of firearms, not to any specific, heightened risk of their misuse. See 2023 Haw. Sess. Laws 114 (invoking general “risks to public health, safety, and welfare associated with firearms and gun violence”). And rather than confining the rule to specific places where firearms are likely to be misused, Hawaii applies it to all private property, even property held open to the public. From the hardware store, to the gas station, to the fast-food restaurant—individuals cannot carry weapons for self-defense unless they obtain express consent.
The Bill of Rights is Not a Popularity Contest
Applying old principles to new circumstances is not always easy. This case, however, is not hard. While most Hawaiians might prefer that no one carry firearms in public places, a majority’s opposition to a constitutional right is not a permissible basis for restricting it. After all, “[t]he very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy” and “to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials.” West Virginia Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624, 638 (1943).
Information for this article was obtained from Wolford v. Lopez, 609 U.S. _____ (2026).
Wolford v. Lopez, 609 U.S. _____ (2026) was issued by the U.S. Supreme Court on June 25, 2026 and is binding throughout the United States.
Lessons Learned
Constitutional Rights Are Not Subject to a Popularity Vote – The Supreme Court reaffirmed that constitutional rights cannot be restricted simply because a majority of citizens oppose them. Legislatures may enact reasonable regulations but they cannot diminish a constitutional right based solely on changing political preferences or public opinion. As Justice Barrett explained “The State represents that Hawaiians do not think that people should be able to carry guns onto private property— even if it is held open to the public—unless they obtain express consent. See id., at 6. In fact, the overwhelming majority of Hawaiians agree that “loaded, concealed firearms should not be allowed into businesses at all.”. The Bill of Rights exists and continues to protect individual liberties from the will of the majority.
Does this Lopez Decision Impact Ohio? No. Ohio does not presume that firearms are prohibited in private businesses open to the public. Ohio law allows property owners, not the government, to decide whether firearms are permitted on their premises. When a business posts signage prohibiting firearms, enforcement is generally accomplished through Ohio’s criminal trespass statute, O.R.C. §2911.21(A)(4), rather than through a separate firearms offense.
Criminal Trespass O.R.C. §2911.21 (A) No person, without privilege to do so, shall do any of the following: (4) Being on the land or premises of another, negligently fail or refuse to leave upon being notified by signage posted in a conspicuous place or otherwise being notified to do so by the owner or occupant, or the agent or servant of either. Effective April 12, 2021
The Ninth Circuit’s Frequent Flyer Miles to the Supreme Court – The Ninth Circuit once again found itself on the receiving end of a Supreme Court reversal. While every federal circuit occasionally gets reversed, the Ninth Circuit has developed a reputation for writing opinions with expiration dates. The lesson for judges is the same as it is for law enforcement officers: when the U.S. Supreme Court has spoken clearly, follow the law as written or be prepared to create new case law. Remember the Meaderism “If you know case law, there is a good chance you will not create case law.”
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Don’t let your training fail you!
Be safe, smart and objectively reasonable!