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State v. Wilson

Supreme Court of the State of Hawaiʻi
2024 WL 466105 (2024)
ELI5:

Rule of Law:

Article I, section 17 of the Hawaiʻi Constitution establishes a collective, militia-based right to bear arms and does not confer an individual right to carry firearms in public for self-defense. State laws that criminalize the carrying of an unlicensed firearm in public are permissible regulations under both the Hawaiʻi Constitution and the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.


Facts:

  • In December 2017, at approximately 11:00 p.m., Duane Ting, a property owner, observed Christopher Wilson and three companions on his fenced-in property via video surveillance.
  • Ting, armed with an AR-15 rifle, confronted and detained Wilson and his companions until Maui Police Department officers arrived.
  • When officers arrived, Wilson voluntarily informed them, 'I have a weapon in my front waist band.'
  • Police discovered a Phoenix Arms .22 LR caliber pistol, loaded with ten rounds of ammunition, concealed in Wilson's waistband.
  • A records check revealed that the pistol was not registered in Hawaiʻi.
  • Wilson had never applied for, nor been issued, a permit to own or carry a firearm in Hawaiʻi.
  • Wilson stated to police that he had legally purchased the gun in Florida in 2013 and declared that he carried it for self-defense purposes.

Procedural Posture:

  • The State of Hawaiʻi charged Christopher Wilson in the Circuit Court of the Second Circuit (trial court) with violating HRS § 134-25(a) (place to keep firearm) and § 134-27(a) (place to keep ammunition), among other offenses.
  • Wilson filed a motion to dismiss the charges, arguing they were unconstitutional, which the circuit court initially denied in July 2021.
  • Following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, Wilson filed a second motion to dismiss the charges.
  • In August 2022, the circuit court granted Wilson's second motion and dismissed the firearm and ammunition charges with prejudice, ruling they were unconstitutional under Bruen.
  • The State's motion for reconsideration was denied by the circuit court.
  • The State, as Plaintiff-Appellant, appealed the dismissal. The Supreme Court of Hawaiʻi granted the State's application to transfer the case directly to it, bypassing the intermediate appellate court.

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Issue:

Do Hawaiʻi Revised Statutes § 134-25 and § 134-27, which criminalize carrying a firearm and ammunition in public without a license, violate an individual's right to keep and bear arms under Article I, Section 17 of the Hawaiʻi Constitution and the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution?


Opinions:

Majority - Eddins, J.

No. The challenged statutes do not violate the right to keep and bear arms under either the Hawaiʻi or the United States Constitution. First, interpreting the Hawaiʻi Constitution independently, the court holds that the text of Article I, Section 17 ('A well regulated militia...') and its purpose, as understood by its framers, establish a collective right to bear arms tied to militia service, not an individual right for self-defense. The court's analysis is grounded in Hawaiʻi's unique and long-standing historical tradition of heavily regulating weapons, dating back to the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi, which differs significantly from the mainland history cited in Bruen. Second, the statutes do not violate the Second Amendment because the U.S. Supreme Court in Bruen affirmed that states retain the authority to impose licensing requirements for carrying firearms in public. HRS § 134-25 and § 134-27 are part of such a licensing scheme, and Wilson lacks standing to challenge the licensing statute itself (HRS § 134-9) because he never applied for a license.



Analysis:

This decision represents a significant assertion of judicial federalism, with a state supreme court explicitly rejecting the U.S. Supreme Court's textual and historical interpretation of a nearly identical constitutional provision. It establishes that the Hawaiʻi Constitution provides less protection for individual public carry than the Second Amendment post-Bruen, defining the right as purely collective. The ruling insulates Hawaiʻi's strict firearm licensing regime from state constitutional challenges and provides a potential model for other states seeking to maintain strong gun control laws by relying on their own distinct constitutions and historical traditions.

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