The Supreme Court’s Second Amendment decisions, most recently made abundantly clear the Second Amendment codifies, but does not create, an individual, unalienable right to keep and bear arms, which means, with few exceptions, Americans may carry weapons wherever they might be for self-defense and other lawful purposes.
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Democrats aren’t going to put up with that kind of radical, individual liberty, so blue states and cities have passed a variety of blatantly unconstitutional laws as though the Supreme Court and Second Amendment don’t exist. Among them are “vampire” laws, which are merely another way to so inconvenience Normal Americans that they might just give up trying to exercise the right to keep and bear arms.
Vampire laws are based on the fable that vampires can’t enter one’s home without an invitation. Anti-liberty/gun cracktivists take that a step further. No one can carry a weapon into a business unless the business owner first gives explicit permission. Obviously, Americans retain control over their homes and property and can deny anyone entry under conditions of their choice, but vampire laws make one an instant criminal if they don’t comply.
Graphic: Glock 42, Author
Hawaii is arguably even more anti-liberty/gun than California, and that takes some heavy lifting. Among the exceptions recognized by the Supreme Court are “sensitive” places like jails and courthouses. Seizing on that opening, blue states have made just about everywhere a “sensitive” place, and Hawaii has so embraced that loophole that about the only non-sensitive places might be the middle of highways, but not all highways. Add vampire places, and it’s virtually impossible for a law-abiding gun owner to remain law-abiding if they venture out into public.
Fortunately, the Supreme Court just staked the Hawaiian vampire:
In a 6-3 vote, the majority ruled in Wolford v. Lopez that the law violated the :
*The restrictions imposed by Hawaii’s challenged law fall within the plain text of the Second Amendment, so the law is presumptively unconstitutional.
*Hawaii’s argument that its “particular customs and laws,” Brief for Respondent 24, support the new default rule fails because the Second Amendment has the same meaning in all parts of the United States.
*The State’s colonial and early state law analogs consist almost entirely of laws that prohibited unauthorized hunting of deer or small game on someone else’s private property.
The court’s decision The majority opinion was written by Justice Alito, who wrote with his usual clarity as he blasted Hawaii’s end runs around the Constitution:
“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,” explained Alito. [skip]
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“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,” blasted Alito.
The majority provides a helpful review of Heller, McDonald, and Bruen as background, as well as relevant historical precedent. As one might expect, it was the three leftist, female justices who voted to keep Hawaii’s usurpation of the Second Amendment. Justice Jackson wrote a dissent apparently as long as the majority opinion, which features these non-legal arguments:
*Bruen was wrongly decided, and she doesn’t like it.
*The Majority is defending guns, not the Constitution as she sees it.
*Individual property interests override the Constitution. She conflates private homes and property with publicly accessible businesses.
*The majority are stupid, evil, poopy faces.
She ended with this:
Of course, the real irony is that the Court’s effort to rein in judicial discretion has resulted in an arbitrary rule that unleashes judges to thwart gun regulation at every turn.
The Court has certainly thwarted the Ninth Circuit, which they overturn more than any other circuit. Jackson wails because the Court is reining in unlawful judicial discretion that substitutes Democrat policy preferences for the hard lines of the Constitution. Gun regulation, or any other regulation that violates the Constitution, must be thwarted if we’re to retain our constitutional, representative republic and the rule of law.
If that’s not the purpose of the Supreme Court, we have Jackson’s “our democracy,” where rogue leftist judges use their discretion to thwart the Constitution. That’s just what she, and Democrats generally, want.
But not today. Not in Hawaii. They’ll surely come up with another end run around the Second Amendment, but for now, this vampire has been staked in its coffin.
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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, lifelong athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer, and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.
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