*Breaking 2A News* In Today's Hearing the U.S. Supreme Court Casts Doubt on Laws Treating Private Property as Gun-Free by Default

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🕒 7-minute read

Constitutional Evasion?

During Tuesday’s oral argument, the Supreme Court showed more than just doubt about Hawaii’s gun law. The justices raised a bigger issue: can states follow Supreme Court decisions in name but still work around them in practice?

I wrote a column back in early October about the Supreme Court taking up this case.

The case centers on a Hawaii law that makes it illegal for licensed gun owners to bring firearms onto private property open to the public unless the owner says it’s allowed. California used a similar rule after the Supreme Court’s 2022 Bruen decision, which confirmed the right to carry guns outside the home. Instead of accepting that, some states changed the default, making most public commercial spaces off-limits to guns.

The justices’ questions suggested growing impatience with that strategy. Justice Samuel Alito warned Hawaii’s lawyer that the law was “relegating the Second Amendment to second-class status.” His concern was not abstract. A right that disappears the moment someone leaves home is not meaningfully exercised at all.

🔒 This analysis continues below for paid subscribers.

The main takeaway is that the Supreme Court seems focused on whether states are using private-property rules to get around limits they can’t bypass directly.

Inside the paid section:

• Why the property-rights defense breaks down under constitutional scrutiny

• How Bruen limits state efforts to re-engineer gun rights

• What the justices’ questions reveal about California’s SB 2

• Where expansive “sensitive places” arguments are most vulnerable

• Why this case may define how courts police regulatory evasion...