Wolford v. Lopez · ¶108

Once again, look to their “why.” Hawaii offers no evidence that these laws were designed to vindicate the community’s aversion to people carrying guns in public. Nor is it plausible that they rested on such a basis. At the time, guns were commonly owned for self-defense and hunting, and that trend only increased when many Civil War veterans brought their weapons home. See T. Lansford, The Early History of Guns: From Colonial Times to the Civil War, in 1 Guns and Contemporary Society 28 (G. Utter ed. 2016). And while state courts often upheld gun regulations during this period, they did so because the States were pursuing specific regulatory ends, not because they were hostile to gun rights. See, e.g., State v. Chandler, 5 La. Ann. 489, 489–490 (1850); Cockrum v. State, 24 Tex. 394, 401– 402 (1859); Sutton v. State, 12 Fla. 135, 136–137 (1867).

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