Supreme Court takes up challenge to Hawaii restrictions on concealed handguns

The Supreme Court agreed to take up a major new gun rights case focused on recent measures enacted in Hawaii that restrict where people with a license to carry a concealed handgun can bring their weapons.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to take up a major new gun rights case focused on recent measures enacted in Hawaii that restrict where people with a license to carry a concealed handgun can bring their weapons.

At issue are provisions of a law that requires people with concealed carry permits to seek permission to bring their weapons onto private properties that are otherwise open to the public unless the owner already allows it. The law, enacted in 2023, also restricts gun owners from possessing their firearms in certain “sensitive places,” including beaches, parks and bars.

The measure was challenged by three gun owners with concealed carry licenses, Jason Wolford, Alison Wolford, and Atom Kasprzycki, as well as the Hawaii Firearms Coalition, a gun rights group.

A federal judge blocked the provisions, but the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in the state’s favor on those aspects of the law in a September 2024 ruling that also addressed a similar measure in California.

The Supreme Court expanded gun rights in a major 2022 ruling that found for the first time that the right to bear arms under the Constitution’s Second Amendment extends outside the home. But the court had frustrated gun owners by declining to take up cases that would expand upon that ruling even as states such as Hawaii, California and New York have enacted new gun restrictions in the wake of the decision.