Overview
- The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision issued June 25, 2026, invalidated Hawaii’s 2023 Act 52 rule that required licensed concealed-carry holders to get express permission before bringing firearms onto private property open to the public.
- Justice Samuel Alito wrote that the law flipped the longstanding common-law presumption and placed a new and significant burden on the right to carry, and the majority rejected the historical analogues Hawaii cited including an 1865 Louisiana statute tied to the Black Codes.
- The Court made clear that individual businesses may still ban guns by posting or enforcing a no-firearms policy, but the state cannot make such a ban the default for private property open to the public.
- The ruling resolves a split in the lower courts and is likely to be applied to similar ‘default’ bans in California, Maryland, New York and New Jersey, with cases now returning to lower courts and legislatures to revise or defend restrictions under the Court’s Bruen framework.
- Reactions were sharply divided: gun-rights groups hailed the decision as a major Second Amendment victory, Democratic leaders and dissenting justices framed it as an erosion of property-owner protections, and the split opinions underscore ongoing debate over how to apply the history-and-tradition test.