This op-ed was co-written with Austin Knudsen, the Attorney General of Montana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Imagine if your freedom of speech applied only with a store owner\u2019s express permission, or if your right to worship disappeared the moment you entered a public park. That\u2019s the logic behind a Hawaii law that bans gun carry preemptively on private property and in so-called \u201csensitive places\u201d like restaurants and beaches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This isn\u2019t speculation. It\u2019s reality for residents and travelers in Hawaii, where a recent state law<\/a>, now upheld<\/a> by the Ninth Circuit, rewrites the Second Amendment as a conditional privilege. Under Act 52, law-abiding citizens must secure prior authorization to exercise a constitutional right in places as ordinary as a public park or a restaurant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s not how constitutional rights work. They are not permissions granted by government or property owners. They are guarantees that government is bound to protect. The right to keep and bear arms, like free speech or prayer, does not originate in statute; it is inalienable and existed long before the Constitution. The Constitution\u2019s role is to protect that right from government infringement, not to grant or permit it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And that is why Idaho and Montana are leading a coalition<\/a> with 24 other states urging the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To be clear, this is not about targeting Hawaii. We are not interested in political theater. We are involved because Hawaii\u2019s Act 52 is now the test case in a legal battle over whether states can nullify constitutional rights through regulatory presumption. After the Supreme Court\u2019s 2022 decision<\/a> in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen<\/em>, all states were directed to align their firearm laws with the historical tradition of gun regulation in America. Hawaii\u2019s response was to sidestep that guidance and draft a law that, while avoiding outright bans, renders public carry nearly impossible in practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When challenged, the Ninth Circuit upheld that law. But in doing so, it created a direct conflict with the Second Circuit, which had struck down<\/a> a nearly identical framework in Antonyuk v. James<\/em>. Two federal appellate courts reached opposing conclusions on the same constitutional issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n