Wolford v. Lopez · ¶115

I would uphold the challenged Hawaii law because, as JUSTICE JACKSON shows in Part III of her opinion, it is a modern-day analogue of colonial and founding era laws that similarly prohibited carrying firearms onto private property without the owner’s affirmative consent. See post, at 18–25. The “how” is identical: The new law, just like the old ones, sets a default rule against gun carry that a private landowner may reverse. The “why” is sufficiently close. Both sets of laws respond to the dangers and harms that someone with a gun can cause on another person’s property. That the old laws had a special (though by no means exclusive) concern with poaching does not matter. “The regulatory challenges posed by firearms today are not always the same as those that preoccupied” earlier generations. New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U. S. 1, 27 (2022). The key question is…

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