HELENA – Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen led a 27-state coalition today asking the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) to reverse the longstanding “default rule” on Hawaii’s unconstitutional gun ban which prohibits public carry or possession of firearms on private property without advance permission.

The amicus brief was filed in the case of Wolford v. Lopez, in support of three residents and the Hawaii Firearms Coalition in their lawsuit to overturn the ban, known as Act 52. Following a U.S. District Court decision that blocked Hawaii from enforcing much of the ban, the state appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The appeals court reversed the district court’s decision, which allowed the “sensitive places” restrictions and unconstitutional changes to the “default rule” to stand.

“The state of Hawaii is blatantly infringing on their citizens’ Second Amendment rights. SCOTUS has made it clear that the right to keep and bear arms does not end at state lines and I’m hopeful they will do so again. Hawaii’s law flips the default rule on its head, requiring explicit permission by a business to carry a legally owned firearm. Montanans and Hawaiians alike are granted the right to carry unless otherwise posted,” Attorney General Knudsen said. “As attorney general, I will continue to defend our Constitutional rights and challenge those trying to take them.”

Hawaii’s “default rule” severely and purposefully narrows the public’s right to carry by flipping the long-held presumption that a citizen could enter a business open to the public with a firearm unless told otherwise by the owner.

The Ninth Circuit created a circuit split by reversing the injunction on the “default rule.” The Second Circuit upheld an injunction on a nearly identical New York law while relying on the same precedent and same historical regulations as the Ninth Circuit. As a result, New Yorkers can exercise their Second Amendment right, while Hawaiians may not.

Following the U.S. Supreme Court decisions in District of Columbia v. Heller and New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, courts must determine whether modern firearm regulations are consistent with the Second Amendment’s text and historical understanding. Hawaii’s historical evidence fails to establish an “enduring American tradition” of restricting the right to carry in “sensitive places” such as public parks, beaches, banks, financial institutions, or bars and restaurants. The appeals court’s recent decision erred in concluding that Hawaii’s proposed analogues were “relevantly similar.”

SCOTUS’s Bruen decision reassured law-abiding gun owners that the Second Amendment is not “a second-class right.” However, decisions from lower courts – like Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in this case – “have largely failed to follow through on that promise by resorting to manipulative en banc practices, ahistorical interpretations of covered ‘arms,’ and improperly calibrating the level of generality for Bruen’s inquiry.”

Attorneys general from Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Wyoming and the Arizona Legislature joined the brief led by Attorney General Knudsen and Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador.

Click here to read the brief.

In May, Attorney General Knudsen also led successful a 26-state coalition in May asking SCOTUS to intervene in the case.