Labrador Leads Amicus Brief in Asking SCOTUS to Strike Down Hawaii Public Carry Ban
By Greg Pruett • May 5, 2025Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador and Hawaii Attorney General Austin Knudsen of Montana lead a 26-state amicus brief, asking the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down Hawaii’s public carry ban.
What’s Happening: The Ninth Circuit upheld the public carry ban in Hawaii. The amicus brief supports the Wolford v Lopez case. Idaho is part of the Ninth Circuit, so many gun owners in the West are closely watching this case. A similar case out of the Second Court is likely to push this case into the Supreme Court’s hands.
Labrador said in a statement to the media:
“The right to bear arms belongs to the people—not because government permits it, but because government is bound to protect it. Hawaii’s law turns that principle on its head, treating a guaranteed liberty as a regulated privilege. No government—federal or state—has the authority to take what it never had the power to give. If the courts do not intervene, this approach will become a blueprint for restricting the rights of law-abiding gun owners nationwide. Idaho will not stand by. We will fight to uphold the Constitution and defend the freedoms it was established to protect.”
Digging Deeper: The law in Hawaii, passed several years ago, bans public carrying of firearms in nearly every government-owned land, and also bans it in private businesses unless a written contract is signed between the person and the private company.
Because of the onerous process of signing a contract with all of the companies that would normally allow it, gun owners argue it is a de facto ban on public carry. Gun control advocates that the law makes citizens safer.
Tags: Guns, Hawaii, Public Carry, Raul Labrador, Second Amendment, U.S. Supreme Court
Unaware of issues with Hawaii I find these issues being addressed are a re-enforcement that our elected officials are actually doing the right things for the people that put them in office. Thank you. Zane