The U.S. Supreme Court’s June 25, 2026 decision in Wolford v. Lopez held that Hawaii’s so-called “vampire law” (Act 52, Haw. Rev. Stat. § 134‑9.5(a)), which barred concealed‑carry permit holders from bringing handguns onto private property open to the public without the owner’s express permission, violates the Second and Fourteenth Amendments.
For years, a small group of states (Hawaii, New York, New Jersey, California, and Maryland) used laws that generally prohibited people with carry permits from bringing guns onto private property open to the public unless the owner expressly allowed it. Often called “vampire laws,” they were challenged in various lawsuits like Wolford v. Lopez in Hawaii and May v. Bonta in California.
Two years ago, we wrote about the Ninth Circuit’s decision in those cases, which explained where Hawaii and California could treat locations as “sensitive places.” The Ninth Circuit largely sided with the states, upholding most of Hawaii’s and California’s new restrictions by applying the Supreme Court’s test from New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. That test requires modern gun regulations to be consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. But the gun-rights advocates appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Now, the Supreme Court has finally weighed in on the matter, focusing only on Hawaii’s case. The Court’s decision invalidates the state’s default rule and clarifies how the Second Amendment interacts with property rights and state regulation in everyday places like stores, restaurants, and hotels.
The Key Issue in Wolford v. Lopez
Hawaii’s law at the center of Wolford v. Lopez comes from Act 52 (Hawaii Revised Statutes § 134‑9.5(a)), a 2023 statute that overhauled the state’s firearms rules and, among other things, adopted a new default rule for carrying guns on private property. Under Act 52, a person with a carry permit generally could not enter or remain on the “private property of another person” while armed unless the owner or manager gave express authorization, either orally, in writing, or through clear signage.
The plaintiffs in the Hawaii case asked the Supreme Court to review only one part of the Ninth Circuit’s decision: its approval of that Act 52 private‑property default rule. They did not seek review of the “sensitive places” analysis as applied to parks, beaches, bars, banks, or other locations. The Court granted certiorari on that narrow issue, which is why the new decision is focused entirely on the private‑property rule rather than reopening the entire Ninth Circuit framework.
SCOTUS Applies Bruen
The Supreme Court’s majority opinion, authored by Justice Alito, starts by reiterating Bruen’s basic two‑step methodology for Second Amendment challenges. First, a court looks at whether the law touches conduct that falls within the ordinary meaning of the Second Amendment’s words. If it does, the law is assumed to conflict with the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms and can be upheld only if history supports it. Second, the government can defend the law only if it shows that the restriction is consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.
Applying the first step, the Court had little trouble finding that Hawaii’s private‑property rule falls within the text of the Second Amendment. The petitioners are members of “the people,” they seek to “bear Arms” (handguns) for self‑defense, and the statute regulates both their ability to keep and bear those arms by making it a crime to carry them onto private property held open to the public without express consent. The majority emphasizes that the existence of property owners’ rights to exclude does not change this analysis. The question at step one is whether the state’s law regulates arms‑bearing conduct. Once that answer is yes, the Second Amendment is implicated.
Court Rejects Historical Analogues
At the second, history‑focused step, the Supreme Court parted ways with the Ninth Circuit. Hawaii defended its Act 52 default rule by pointing to several past laws it claimed were analogues.
First, the state cited colonial and early state anti‑poaching statutes that banned unauthorized hunting with guns on another’s enclosed land. But the Court pointed out that these laws were designed to prevent hunting‑related harms (like damage to livestock and crops) and were not about criminalizing people who carry a handgun for self‑defense into ordinary businesses.
Second, Hawaii pointed to an 1893 Oregon law prohibiting armed trespass on “enclosed premises or lands” without consent. The Court noted that it was a single, late statute and that Oregon courts read “enclosed land” as outdoor property marked off in a way hunters would recognize, again signaling a focus on hunting rather than everyday commercial settings.
Finally, Hawaii relied on an 1865 Louisiana plantation law. The Court described it as part of the state’s Black Codes, intended to disarm Black residents, and emphasized that it was neither widespread nor widely accepted. Because of both its purpose and limited reach, the majority concluded it had no meaningful value in defining the scope of the Second Amendment.
The Court concluded that these historical examples do not justify a modern default rule that makes armed entry onto nearly all private property open to the public a crime unless the owner affirmatively opts in. As the majority put it, “the gap between the State’s anti‑poaching analogues and its new rule is just too wide,” so Hawaii’s law violates the Second and Fourteenth Amendments.
Property Rights and Constitutional Limits
A key theme in the Supreme Court’s decision is the relationship between property rights and gun rights. The majority and Justice Barrett’s concurrence agree that property owners have a strong right to exclude. In other words, individual businesses and landowners should remain free to ban firearms on their own property if they choose. If a bank, restaurant, or store decides to prohibit customers from carrying guns inside, they can do so as a matter of their property rights.
But the Court draws a firm line between private choices and state‑imposed defaults. When a state enacts a law that makes arms‑bearing a crime in certain places, including private property held open to the public, that law is subject to the Second Amendment and the historical‑tradition test. Property law concepts do not allow a state to skirt constitutional scrutiny simply by framing a gun restriction as a “default rule.”
Dissenting Views
Not everyone on the Court agreed with the majority’s approach to Hawaii’s law. The dissents, especially Justice Jackson’s, see the case primarily through the lens of property rights rather than gun rights. In their view, there is no freestanding constitutional right to carry a gun onto someone else’s land without that person’s consent. The core question, they argue, is how states may define and enforce consent – whether it is implied by opening a business to the public or must be expressly given.
From that perspective, Hawaii’s rule requiring express authorization before a permit holder brings a gun onto private property open to the public is simply one way of setting default property norms. The dissenters treat it as a choice about how owners signal consent, not as a significant burden on the Second Amendment. They would leave most disputes about implied versus express consent to state property law, rather than treating every change in the default rule as a constitutional problem.
The majority rejects that framing. It insists that once the state makes arms‑bearing a crime in certain places (including private property open to the public) the Second Amendment is implicated, and the law must be justified under the text‑and‑history test, not just as a neutral property rule.
Practical Effects
The Supreme Court’s ruling invalidates Hawaii’s broad default rule that made it a misdemeanor for licensed carriers to enter another person’s private property while armed without express authorization, so that portion of Act 52 may not be enforced going forward.
However, the decision does not affect the ability of individual property owners to decide whether to allow guns on their premises, and it leaves Hawaii’s other “sensitive places” restrictions (such as bans involving parks, beaches, bars, banks, and government buildings) outside the scope of this decision. The rest of the litigation over those provisions, and the Ninth Circuit’s analysis of them, will continue in the lower courts.
