The U.S. Supreme Court declined this week to consider reversing a Hawaii Supreme Court ruling that allowed authorities to prosecute a man for carrying a pistol in public without a license.
The new decision was made after the Hawaii Supreme Court issued a ruling in the case that criticized the U.S. Supreme Court for several of its Second Amendment opinions that bolstered gun rights.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruling took the form of an unsigned order on Dec. 9 in Wilson v. Hawaii. The case could return to the nation’s highest court again in the future.
No justices dissented from the denial of the petition, but Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch filed statements expressing their concerns about the Hawaii Supreme Court’s decision allowing the prosecution.
The petitioner, Christopher Wilson, had been hiking in the mountains in Hawaii in 2017 when the police investigated him for trespassing. Wilson advised them he had a loaded pistol on his person and was arrested. The state charged him with possessing a handgun without having a license.
Before Hawaii amended the law in 2023, applicants for a concealed carry license had to demonstrate they had “an exceptional case” to carry and “reason to fear injury” to their property or person. Anyone applying for an open carry license had to be at least 21, be a U.S. citizen, and prove “urgency or need” and good moral character. The police still retained discretion to refuse the license if the person was deemed not “qualified” and “mentally deranged.”
Wilson asked for the charges against him to be dismissed in May 2022, weeks before the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2022 ruling in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen. Bruen held that individuals have a right to bear arms in public for self-defense and placed the burden on those defending gun restrictions to prove that those restrictions had a historical analogue, the petition said.
After the Bruen ruling was issued, Wilson argued that because he was carrying a gun in public for self-defense the state had the burden to show it had authority to proceed with the prosecution. The state argued that Wilson could not challenge the state law because he lacked a license. The trial court sided with Wilson and dismissed the case.
The state asked the Hawaii Supreme Court to set aside the dismissal, arguing that Bruen did not cover Wilson’s situation. The court overturned the dismissal in March 2024, finding that Wilson could not contest the licensing system.
The state court also criticized the U.S. Supreme Court’s finding in District of Columbia Heller (2008), which it said “flipped the nation’s textual and historical understanding of the Second Amendment.” It also attacked the Bruen ruling for doing away with “the levels of scrutiny and public safety balancing tests long-used by our nation’s courts” in favor of “a fuzzy ‘history and traditions’ test.”
Bruen “dismantles workable methods to interpret firearm laws,” the Hawaii Supreme Court said.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s rulings on the Second Amendment in recent years demonstrate how the nation’s highest court “undercuts the other branches’ responsibility ... to preserve public order and solve today’s problems.”
The petition said the Hawaii court supported an interpretation of the Second Amendment that holds that it protects “a collective right to bear arms through State militias.”
The state court said the U.S. Supreme Court “distorts and cherry-picks historical evidence” and “discards historical facts that don’t fit” the view that the Second Amendment protects an individual right.
Finally, the Hawaii Supreme Court found the Hawaii Constitution does not provide for an individual right to bear arms.
Justice Thomas Criticizes Hawaii Court Ruling
In a statement, Thomas, who wrote the Bruen opinion, said that although he agreed that Wilson’s petition should be dismissed for procedural reasons, the state court “failed to give the Second Amendment its due regard,” and ignored the Supreme Court’s holding in Bruen.The state court’s finding that Wilson could not challenge the constitutionality of the Hawaii gun law “because he had never applied for a license ... contravenes the settled principle that Americans need not engage in empty formalities before they can invoke their constitutional rights, and it wrongly reduces the Second Amendment to a ‘second-class right.’”
Thomas added that the U.S. Supreme Court may reexamine the issues at hand in the future “in an appropriate case” at which time the justices “should make clear that Americans are always free to invoke the Second Amendment as a defense against unconstitutional firearms-licensing schemes.”
Thomas’s statement was joined by Alito.
In a separate statement, Gorsuch said the state court’s “decision raises questions” because it didn’t address Wilson’s argument that the prosecution ran afoul of Bruen.
Wilson may again ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review his case after the prosecution is finalized, he said.
Wilson’s attorney, state public defender Benjamin E. Lowenthal in Honolulu, reacted to the new ruling.
“While we are disappointed the petition was denied, we are even more convinced that the Hawaii Supreme Court should reexamine its opinion,” he told The Epoch Times.
“The constitutional problem persists in our state. And as long as the constitutional problem remains, there will be constitutional challenges.”
Maui County, Hawaii, prosecuting attorney Richard B. Rost of Wailuku, lauded the new ruling.
“We are pleased the Supreme Court of the United States has elected not to review the Hawaii Supreme Court’s decision in this case,” he told The Epoch Times.
“This clears the way for this case to proceed to trial, where a jury will decide whether Defendant Wilson violated Hawaii law. Defendant Wilson is presumed innocent until proven guilty.”
