The Hawaii Supreme Court handed down a unanimous opinion on Wednesday declaring that its state constitution grants individuals absolutely no right to keep and bear arms outside the context of military service. Its decision rejected the U.S. Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Second Amendment, refusing to interpolate SCOTUS’ shoddy historical analysis into Hawaii law. Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern discussed the ruling on this week’s Slate Plus segment of Amicus; their conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
I think the fact that there’s no government enforcement is what allowed that to work in Texas. You couldn’t challenge the state, because it’s private citizens that are “enforcing” the law through civil action.
Its private citizens who are alerting sheriff’s deputies and local pd by filing these complaints. They’ve effectively created a kind of legal framework for anti-abortion SWATing.
The system only works because the cops/prosecutors/judges are assumed willing to play along. Specifically, Ken Paxton - the state AG - is fishing for pregnant woman and their attendant physicians to hook and hammer. He’s outsourced the process of detective work to his horde of little online gumshoes. But the ability to exercise violence on anyone spotted is still reserved to his friendly officers corpse.