The decision rejected the U.S. Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Second Amendment.
The Hawaii Supreme Court handed down a unanimous opinion on Wednesday declaring that its state constitution grants individuals absolutely no right to keep and bear arms outside the context of military service. Its decision rejected the U.S. Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Second Amendment, refusing to interpolate SCOTUS’ shoddy historical analysis into Hawaii law. Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern discussed the ruling on this week’s Slate Plus segment of Amicus; their conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
It’s an amazing case because the Hawaii Constitution has a provision that is the same as the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It literally uses the exact same words as the Second Amendment. And Justice Eddins said: Even though the provisions are the same, we will not interpret them the same way, because we think the U.S. Supreme Court clearly got it wrong in Heller when it said the Second Amendment creates an individual right to bear arms.
The bill of rights protects rights, it doesn't create rights. That is a pretty fundamental concept.
This is a bad ruling; Hawai'i is saying that their state laws and traditions take precedent over federal laws, the US constitution, and SCOTUS rulings. It's intentionally trying to undermine the concept of the rule of law in order to get the result that they want. That's not a "devastating rebuke", it's a toddler screaming about not getting candy in the supermarket.
This is counter to the concept of the rule of law, and should be seen as an embarrassment, not something to celebrate.
Not too familiar with the US but didn't Texas just recently just set a precedent that the supreme court can just be ignored. Doesn't the legal system there work off of precedent so that's a thing you can just do now?
This is asserting we have no rights outside of what the federal or state constitutions allow, which is a bad precedent to attempt to set. The Bill of Rights Amendments do not provide us with rights, they instead protect us from government limitations of certain rights that are inherent. People seem do not understand the juxtaposition of granted rights vs protected rights in these contexts when diacussing these kinds of cases.
Does the Hawaii state constitution specifically deny the right to keep and bear arms outside of military service?