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.
SO YOU AGREE that there is no Constitutional right to carry.
WTF are you on about? I didn’t make any argument about “constitutional” carry. Moreover, the Bruen decision said that states could impose carry restrictions, just that the restrictions had to be reasonable and apply universally (neither of which is the case in New York, either the state or the city).
As far as the states that no longer require a permit to carry? By saying that states may make reasonable restrictions on carrying firearms, SCOTUS has implicitly said that states may have permitless carry. …And TBH, since my state enacted permitless carry several years ago, I don’t believe that there’s been a significant rise in gun violence (aside from the spike seen across the country during the pandemic).
I think that it’s just a non-issue.
That said, I would hope that people that choose to carry would get some training, practice, and learn when they can legally use lethal self-defense. Which, sadly, mostly people do not.