Hawaii shocked the nation with perhaps the most incompetently cobbled-together justification in history for violating the Constitution.
On Wednesday, the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled in State v. Wilson that citizen and firearm user Christopher Wilson had violated state laws by publicly carrying a gun without a state permit. It stated that while the state justices acknowledged that both its constitutions’ interpretations of the Second Amendment are the same, they just chose to ignore it:
“We read those words differently than the current United States Supreme Court. We hold that in Hawaii there is no state constitutional right to carry a firearm in public.”
With the writing prose of the most amateur college freshman protester, the court justified a direct violation of the Second Amendment by trying to say that the nation’s most fundamental cornerstone law does not apply to it.
Hawaii did this with two interesting claims: laws that are old are simply null and inapplicable, and the pre-American Hawaiian kingdom maintained an unwritten zero-arms policy.
Let’s start by addressing the first claim, “Get with the times, old man!” Hawaii’s court said, “As the world turns, it makes no sense for contemporary society to pledge allegiance to the founding era’s culture, realities, laws, and understanding of the Constitution.” This statement is sure to make every serious lawmaker roll in their grave.
Constitutional law and its interpretation rely heavily on historical precedent. Previous rulings by previous courts from the present day to the Constitution’s fine print have to be taken into account when reading the law in America. If precedent played no part and present interpretation was all that mattered, then legal chaos would ensue.
Even if Hawaii wants to ignore the original intentions of the Founding Fathers, it still has to get past each successive interpretation of it by the Supreme Court since, which has remained solidly consistent. Hawaii claimed that open carry can be illegal because “there are no words that mention a personal right to possess lethal weapons in public places for possible self-defense.”
In 2022, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the original definition of the Second Amendment in N.Y.S. Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen: “We too agree, and now hold, consistent with Heller and McDonald, that the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home.”
To top it all off, the highest court of a state decided to justify this line of thought by quoting the television show The Wire, taking from it the line “The thing about the old days, they the old days.” The show’s creator even praised Hawaii for doing it. Actual officials approved and submitted this statement.
Now, onto the second claim, that foreign obsolete laws supersede highly relevant and consistent ones. Hawaii argued that the region’s historical precedent overrode its current legal status as a state. If regional and not legal historical precedent is all that counts, then what stops Texas from adhering to Comanche practices of scalping and gang-raping prisoners? What stops Florida from levying out Spanish Inquisitionary punishments to heathens?
The Hawaii justices tried to preemptively save their skins by saying, “We try our best. Judges are not historians.” And that they aren’t, for one look at Hawaiian history shows a long succession of armed territorial disputes between island groups who saw ritual and warfare as one and the same. There was a need to stay armed when trading with outside groups in case of raids.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Didn’t Hawaii also say that older precedents are irrelevant to present lawmaking? Whoops.
If there were any more proof needed to support the popular claim that America no longer exists within the confines of a serious political climate, Hawaii’s court decision here would be it.
Parker Miller is a 2024 Washington Examiner Winter Fellow.