WASHINGTON, June 25 (DC Times Online) — The Supreme Court in Washington struck down Hawaii’s law requiring concealed-carry permit holders to get a property owner’s consent before entering certain privately owned places open to the public, ruling 6-3 that the measure violates the Second Amendment.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority in Wolford v. Lopez that Hawaii’s law “violates the constitutional right to keep and bear arms.” He said the rule also “hobble[s] what the Second Amendment protects: the right of Americans to carry arms for self-defense as they go about their daily lives.”
The decision invalidates Hawaii’s default ban on carrying concealed firearms on certain private property unless owners affirmatively allowed it or posted signs.
The ruling adds to the court’s recent Second Amendment decisions, including District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008, when the court struck down Washington, D.C.’s handgun ban, and McDonald v. City of Chicago in 2010, which applied the right to keep and bear arms against state and local governments.
In Heller, the court also struck down a requirement that firearms be kept disassembled or fitted with trigger locks.
