It has been 65 years since Hawaii became a state, but the Hawaiian Supreme Court appears to be having second thoughts. In an extraordinary ruling, the unanimous Supreme Court rejected the holdings of the United States Supreme Court on the Second Amendment as inapplicable to the 50th state. Hawaii apparently is controlled not by the precedent of the Supreme Court but the “spirit of Aloha.” While Queen Liliʻuokalani would be pleased, the justices on that “other” Supreme Court may view such claims as more secessional than spiritual.
On Wednesday, in State v. Wilson, Justice Todd Eddins wrote the decision dismissing the appeal of Christopher Wilson, who was arrested in December 2017 for publicly carrying a .22-caliber pistol in his “front waist band.” Wilson insisted that he carried the gun while hiking for self-protection.
Under Section 134-25 of the Hawaii Revised Statutes, “all firearms” must be “confined to the possessor’s place of business, residence, or sojourn.” The only exceptions are for transporting guns in closed containers, hunting or target shooting, and for those with a license.
Wilson argued that “prosecuting him for possessing a firearm for self-defense purposes outside his home violated his right to bear arms” under the Second Amendment. While the trial court rejected his motion, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022) and Circuit Court Judge Kirstin Hamman dismissed the charges with prejudice.
Justice Eddins wrote that the Hawaii Constitution “does not afford a right to carry firearms in public places for self defense.” Eddins notes that “Article I, section 17 of the Hawaii Constitution mirrors the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution.” However, “we read those words differently than the current United States Supreme Court. We hold that in Hawaii there is no state constitutional right to carry a firearm in public.” He then adds:
“The spirit of Aloha clashes with a federally-mandated lifestyle that lets citizens walk around with deadly weapons during day-to-day activities. The history of the Hawaiian Islands does not include a society where armed people move about the community to possibly combat the deadly aims of others.”
Justice Eddins is referencing District of Columbia v. Heller, where the U.S. Supreme Court in 2008 explicitly recognized that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to arms. Most recently, in 2022 in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the Court held that “the right of the people to keep and bear arms” extends beyond the home. Those decisions rely heavily on interpreting the right in line with the historical practices and understandings leading to the ratification of the Second Amendment.
Justice Eddins mocks the holdings of the Court and insists that the Second Amendment was intended to arm militias as a protection against the federal government, adding “that’s what they were thinking about long ago. Not someone packing a musket to the wigmaker just in case.” He dismisses the U.S. Supreme Court historical understanding as “debunked.”
Instead, he relies on such unassailable sources as the series The Wire:
Bruen‘s command to find an old-days “analogue” undercuts the other branches’ responsibility—at the federal, state, and local levels—to preserve public order and solve today’s problems. And it downplays human beings’ aptitude for technological advancement.
Time-traveling to 1791 or 1868 to collar how a state regulates lethal weapons—per the Constitution’s democratic design—is a dangerous way to look at the federal constitution. The Constitution is not a “suicide pact.”
We believe it is a misplaced view to think that today’s public safety laws must look like laws passed long ago. Smoothbore, muzzle-loaded, and powder-and-ramrod muskets were not exactly useful to colonial era mass murderers. And life is a bit different now, in a nation with a lot more people, stretching to islands in the Pacific Ocean….
As the world turns, it makes no sense for contemporary society to pledge allegiance to the founding era’s culture, realities, laws, and understanding of the Constitution. “The thing about the old days, they the old days.”
Yet, what is controlling is the history of Hawaii, which included limits on weapons. He notes that in 1833 King Kamehameha III (left) “promulgated a law prohibiting ‘any person or persons’ on shore from possessing a weapon, including any ‘knife, sword-cane, or any other dangerous weapon.'”
That 1833 decree reflects what Eddins calls “the Aloha Spirit.”
“In Hawaiʻi, the Aloha Spirit inspires constitutional interpretation…When this court exercises “power on behalf of the people and in fulfillment of [our] responsibilities, obligations, and service to the people” we “may contemplate and reside with the life force and give consideration to the ‘Aloha Spirit.’” HRS § 5-7.5(b) (2009).
The spirit of Aloha clashes with a federally-mandated lifestyle that lets citizens walk around with deadly weapons during day-to-day activities.”
Whatever the Spirit of Aloha may encompass, it does not fit within the supremacy clause under Article VI, Clause 2. Nevertheless, Democratic Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez praised the decision as “thoughtful and scholarly” and celebrated the court affirming “the constitutionality of crucial gun-safety legislation.”
The hyperbole of the decision does not mean that the Hawaii Supreme Court is prepared to defy the United States Supreme Court. Indeed, other states are pushing their own bars on gun possession in public areas without such rhetoric.
Aloha is often interpreted as meaning “in harmony with the people and land around you.” The U.S. Constitution has the same principle that was ratified after the Articles of Confederation to establish the supremacy of laws. As Justice Jackson once noted, the justices of the United States Supreme Court “are not final because we are infallible, we are infallible because we are final.”
Here is the opinion: State-v.-Wilson-Hawaii-SC-2-7-24
I love reading Turley, but if I have to read ONE MORE article about States and lower courts flagrantly violating constitutional rights and SCOTUS decisions, without him taking a a moment to explain what the ramifications are to those States and Courts, and what authority, with bite, can actually turn it back, my head is going to explode! If this thing in Hawaii stands, it will be the straw that breaks the camels back and put in motion a domino effect, completely nullifying the SCOTUS. Professor Turley… are you hearing me here?
Of even more interest to me is for Turley to address what role the other two branches of government has when the 3rd branch is off the rails, committing crimes and abdicating its oath of office? Shouldn’t they be meeting right now to stop this administration? Dr. Turley, please weigh in. Any role for the other branches, or do I need to find my torch and pitchfork?
If you visit Washington DC, Richmond, Baltimore, Norfolk, and other Democrat run cities, they appear to have ample supply of mostly peaceful torches and pitchforks, and carjackings, murders, assault and battery, robbery, rape and so forth. Bonus: if you acquire / use these items illegally while suffering from cognitive impairment and memory loss, DOJ prosecutors will not press charges. How are you at convincing a jury that you are a sympathetic, well meaning elderly man with or without a mental state of willfulness?
We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory. Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone for whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt. It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him-by then a former president well into his eighties-of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.
DOJ Special Counsel Robert Hur on Joseph Biden
https://www.justice.gov/storage/report-from-special-counsel-robert-k-hur-february-2024.pdf
What a great idea! Just pick up what I need in DC off the street. I bet I could get a car, too. If the leader of the free world can convince a special counsel he didn’t willfully take (what? 1800 boxes stored at Penn???) on purpose, then I should have no problem appearing to be an illegal immigrant who needs a debit card, cell phone, bus tickets, a hotel room (flat screen tv please) and laundry service. Maybe I should just get that and leave the torch and pitchfork for November.
The Aloha Spirit gave us Maizey Horono, one of the dumbest members of the Senate.
And one of the most hateful to boot.
I’d let Hawaii leave. I guarantee the Chinese won’t let Hawaiian residents carry firearms.
Maybe after this stupid decision not so 50. Book ‘em Dano!
https://youtu.be/AepyGm9Me6w?si=MpEoqvs8PR4iP2rJ
When the people of Hawaii look west to an ascendant China, and remember Pearl Harbor, they may have second thoughts about seceding from the Union.
From my link below, here is the actual vote, from 1959:
June 27, 1959: Hawaiʻi voters approved the Statehood bill 132,773 to 7,971 votes.
Looks like Democracy to me!
So 94.3% in favor. In doing so, they agreed to having the US Constitution, including 2A, as the supreme law of their land, and to be bound by Scotus decisions interpreting that document. Sorry pal, too late to change your mind.
For all the whiners about Hawaaiians not wanting statehood, the people opposing it were Democrat States, like Massachusetts, who did not wish another Republican state admitted to the Union. Just like it was the Yankees who pressed the “blacks are 3/5ths of a person” addition to the constitution. The slave owning states wanted slaves counted as full citizens. But, I digress, Here is a good link to the truth, prior to Woke Narrative Re-Writing:
https://guides.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/c.php?g=105252&p=687125
“Just like it was the Yankees who pressed the “blacks are 3/5ths of a person” addition to the constitution. The slave owning states wanted slaves counted as full citizens.”
What a silly and foolish distortion. The southern states wanted them “counted” as full citizens, (even though of course they would remain slaves and could not vote and had not rights) so the south could dominate the congress and leave slavery in place. You make it sound like their reasons were virtuous! The “yankees” did not want to count slaves at all, because they could not vote and were just being used as a tactic to keep the slave states in the majority.
Thank you for clarifying that the Yankees did not even want to count the slaves as people at all! 0/5ths of a person is even worse than 3/5ths of a person. How come? For political advantage. Yes, now I have a much higher opinion of Yankees – NOT.
What will the Scotus order look like? Maybe:
PER CURIAM
The order of the Supreme Court of Hawaii is VACATED and the matter is REMANDED for reconsideration in light of New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1, 142 S. Ct. 2111 (2022).
Why should it surprise that a judge in Hawaii issues a poorly written, absurdly referenced decision, spouting favorite leftist talking points about the 2A going back decades? Hawaii is a sink of leftist dregs and their dependents, and will be for the foreseeable future. This joker knows the SCOTUS will promptly void his decision. He’s just earning dinner-party creds, or perhaps luau creds would be more appropriate.
Spirit of Aloha??? The history of the Hawaiian Islands does not include a society where armed people move about the community to possibly combat the deadly aims of others.” “Bwahahahahaha! Here is the Reality”, from The National Park Service:
“Warfare was a familiar part of early Hawaiian life. Interludes of peace were often broken by fierce battles to determine succession to the office of ali’i-nui and to establish political boundaries. Aspiring young chiefs practiced the arts of warfare with great intensity. Typically, having defeated other chiefs to gain control over one island, a major chief and his warriors would then raid and attempt to conquer other islands. Death of a reigning king almost always meant war. [1] Large-scale political activity and territorial expansion by conquest was characteristic of the decade and a half following Captain Cook’s arrival.
It is ironic that Cook’s arrival was thought to be the return of Lono, the god of peace and plenty. Once the Hawaiians discovered Cook was not a god, warfare resumed among the four interrelated chiefs who had split the island archipelago into four chiefdoms. During the two decades following Cook’s visit, intense rivalry among these intensified. Beginning in 1786, other foreign ships called at the islands, introducing trade and new technology and expertise to conduct warfare. [2] Rituals and offerings to Ku, the god of war, increasingly occupied the hearts and hands of the populace, the warriors, and the priests. As the local economies were drained by warfare, the chiefs of Hawai’i and Maui began to assume more power, for those islands had larger populations and richer resource bases to draw upon.
By the 1780s warfare had become institutionalized, with formal rules and rituals. The ali’i built and consecrated luakini (state temples) and conducted sacrifices, prayers, and ceremonies. Kahuna were consulted to determine the best time to attack. The chiefs acquired war experts who passed on their combat skills to young warriors. Warfare skills were honed during athletic contests held during the Makahiki festival, which, however, marked a suspension in actual warfare from October to February each year.
Trading contributed to the increased warfare, which previously had, to a certain degree, been kept in check by limited weaponry and by economics. Unfortunately, as more foreign traders and travelers came to the islands, the populace acquired powerful new weapons of war whose killing power was far greater than the stones and spears traditionally employed. [3] Trading also brought new sources of wealth with which to gain power and thus increased rivalry among the chiefs.
Hawaii’s Supreme Court ruling is unlawful. They are in direct violation of constitutional law and the requirements for these Justices to be allowed to serve on any of the People’s courts. Article VI Clause 2 and 3 makes this crystal clear. There is zero chance of explaining away their insurrectional actions. The damage these Justices have inflicted on Hawaii and our nation is beyond any violations of J6, BLM or Antifa. These Justices have attacked the Constitution that has protected our Republic and freedoms for nearly 250 years.
What faith can the citizens of the United States have in their government when the Guardians of the Constitution disregard it like a meaningless rag.
In order to restore faith in our Republic and our Representative Government these Justices must be immediately removed from the court and punished.
The People deserve no less. Restoration of our Constitution and our government is essential to unite what corrupt and greedy politicians, bureaucrats and elites have tried to destroy.
Since Hawaii was not a state in 1787, they may have a point. OTOH, there was never any legitimate justification for annexing Hawaii as a state in the first place; it was a bribery-induced sop to Dole and a few smaller businesses that wanted carte blanche for corporate agriculture to run rampant over the population there. Frankly, the US could probably have avoided involvement in WWII if not for that error. So perhaps the best solution here is to emancipate the residents: cut them loose to swim or sink in their own sea without a US financial life preserver to buoy them up.
Hawaii was admitted to the Union many years after WW2, genius.
I think the Hawaii Supreme Court had a Luau prior to voting on this case and imbibed a great deal of Aloha Spirits.
The centrifugal forces of the American Empire are causing it to fly apart from its center.
I think the Supreme Court reaching back to find legal reasoning in “history and tradition” can become a means of denying facts and realities of the present. The kill rate of modern weapons would be equivalent to back then firing a cannon into a crowd of people. Was possession of cannon regulated?….definitely.
Pbinca, last I looked, criminals and tyrants weren’t limiting their crimes to musketry, and they’re not likely to, regardless of who is legislating morality.
The Aloha Justices could always ban muskets and, following the Aloha Spirit, crimes would be limited to headhunting
Please list the number of homicides via .22 pistol in the past, i dunno, however long it takes to equal the number of people killed via ‘cannon into a crowd.’
You want to limit gun homicides? clean up your democrat cities.
Scotus’s job is to interpret the meaning of text written long ago, it is not to affirm or deny facts on the ground, which are found by the trial court based on evidence.
You should read Turley’s other pieces where he explains that they were definitely not regulated ans were possessed by private citizens.
Actually I think you’ll find that private possession of a cannon was not prohibited. Private US flagged merchant ships carried privately owned cannon for example.
PbinCA; You seem to have totally misunderstood the meaning and necessity of the 2nd amendment. It isn’t in place to regulate firearms, it’s sole purpose is to act as a strong and permanent deterrent of tyranny by anyone attempting to limit the freedoms of American citizens by means of the use of governmental force. Until the prog/left gets that understanding pounded into their little shrunken noggins, they will continue to call for unconstitutional gun control simply because they have been purposefully indoctrinated to ignore that fact.
Whimsicalmama
Correct.
The 2cnd amendment does not my hunting rifle, or Skeet gun.
The 2cnd Amendment exist to protect me from my Government.
Gee thanks Jonathan, It’s always comforting to know that You’re actually older than one of the States of the Union.
That said, One only has to look at pictures of the ‘The attack on Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941; 82 years ago, to see Guns – Really Big Guns and Small Fire Arms on Hawaiian Soil. Open Carry was quite popular then and has been since. Hawaiian Open Carry Prohabition will continue to be ignored. So its best to stay on the ‘right side of the street’ (Be a Friendly with Law Enforcement) to be on the ‘Right side of the Law’. I would suggest that Christopher Wilson was on the ‘wrong side of the street’ with respect to Law Enforcement.
Rephrase: [right side of the street]
I didn’t see Anyone J-Walking Today, but I did use my Buddies’ Starbucks Gift Card for some Coffee & Doughnuts. All’s well, that ends well, Here in Hawaii.
Democrats on insurrection: “It’s ok when we do it!!”
The Hawaii Supreme Court is even crazier than the Colorado Supreme Court, and that’s saying something!
In MA the openly gay governor, I just reference her being openly gay because it is cited every time the new governor is mentioned, just appointed one of her ex-girlfriends to be a justice on the state’s Supreme Judicial Court. Do any of the liberals that hate Clarence Thomas for what his wife believes have an issue with a governor appointing an ex to the highest court?
Maybe Trump can nominate Marla Maples…just to see the look on Sotomayor’s face.
I just reference her being openly gay because it is cited every time the new governor is mentioned
As the French reincarnation of Shirley Temple, who goes by the moniker KJP, reminded us upon starting her job, breaking glass ceilings is one of the highest values of the Left (merit be damned), and that hasn’t changed in 60 years. They’re running out of such ceilings.
DeSandis and Abbott need to start filling up jets with illegal aliens and dropping them off on the Islands. Hawaii needs to embrace the core values of the United States
Also to the Reservation in SD that has been attacking Christie Noem for her position on immigration.
Great idea ! They already have Hawaiian Air to pick up the illegals, so it should work out just fine. Odd that no one in Hawaii has suggested bringing them out there. Maybe they can help rebuild Lahaina ???
I think it’s time for a major smack down.
The justice system in this country is subsiding into unfunny slapstick. The same crime that earned Joe Biden a Hallmark moment from “prosecutor” Hur is being exploited to try to throw Trump in jail for 800 years (except Trump had an arguable right to the documents whereas Biden had none). Peter Navarro has to go to jail, in his 70’s, for the egregious crime of defying a congressional subpoena, the same egregious crime Hunter Biden will not even be prosecuted for. And why the Republican controlled House didn’t at least hold on to that possibility until after the Navarro sentencing is a mystery that can’t be explained except by the fact that the GOP is so very good at losing. Now we have Hawaii just blatantly saying that the Constitution doesn’t really apply to them. The ruling can’t stand and they know that perfectly well. so what they are trying to accomplish by ensuring that this case goes on to SCOTUS is a mystery. I suppose they have been encouraged by places like New York that keep enacting anti-Constitutional gun laws no matter how many smackdowns they get from SCOTUS. It’s really quite simple. Freedom means freedom.
Don’t forget Dennis Mackey getting 7 months for posting a meme.
Deep state rules.