On June 25, 2026, the Supreme Court decided Wolford v. Lopez, Attorney General of Hawaii, No. 24-1046, ruling that a Hawaii law prohibiting concealed-carry permit holders from bringing firearms onto private property open to the public unless the property owner gave express permission violated the Second and Fourteenth Amendments.
Hawaii's Act 52 prohibits licensed individuals from carrying a firearm — even if unloaded or inoperable — on private property of another unless they had received "express authorization" from the property owner, lessee, operator, or manager. In 2023, three Maui County residents and the Hawaii Firearms Coalition challenged the law in federal court, arguing that it is unconstitutional. The district court agreed with the petitioners and enjoined enforcement of the law, as applied to private property open to the public. A Ninth Circuit panel reversed and the full Ninth Circuit denied rehearing en banc.
The US Supreme Court vacated the Ninth Circuit's decision. Writing for the Court, Justice Alito said that Act 52 cannot be reconciled with the right to bear arms or the Court's Second Amendment jurisprudence. In particular, the law "departs sharply from the standard common-law rule on access to private property held open to the public," Justice Alito wrote. "Under that rule, everyone, including those lawfully carrying firearms, may enter unless expressly prohibited from doing so."
In arriving at that conclusion, the Court applied the two-step framework established in New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022). It found the first step — which asks whether the restrictions imposed by the challenged law fall within the Second Amendment — easily met: the petitioners were among "the people," they sought to "bear" "arms," and the law imposed a "new and significant burden" on that right. The Court emphasized the practical burden on permit holders, describing how an ordinary day of errands — visiting a gas station, restaurant, drug store, dry cleaner, or grocery store—could expose a law-abiding permit holder to criminal liability at each stop unless each establishment had posted signage expressly welcoming firearms.
At Bruen's second step, which mandates consideration of the historical scope of the right to bear arms, the Court evaluated Hawaii's proffered historical analogues and found them insufficient to justify the law. For example, it rejected Hawaii's reliance on colonial and early state law analogs because those laws prohibited authorized hunting of deer or small game on someone else's private property, not retail establishments that residents frequent as part of their daily routines. Those laws, the Court explained, had little impact on the Second Amendment's central objective of protecting the fundamental right to self-defense. The Court also rejected Hawaii's reliance on 1893 Oregon law prohibiting armed trespass on "enclosed premises," which the Court found ambiguous and, in any event, too late in time to shed significant light on the Second Amendment's meaning.
Justice Alito delivered the Opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett joined. Justice Barrett filed a concurring opinion, in which Justices Thomas and Gorsuch joined as to Part II-B. Justice Kagan filed a dissenting opinion. Justice Jackson also filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justice Sotomayor joined.
