Well, that didn’t take long.
The United States Supreme Court has barely finished hearing oral arguments in Wolford v. Lopez, the Hawaii “vampire rule” litigation, and already Aloha State lawmakers have been panicked into an attempt at a preemptive legislative workaround.
As we explained in an earlier alert on the Wolford case, Hawaii’s “vampire rule” bans licensed carry on almost all private property unless the person carrying has been given actual express authorization to carry a firearm on the property by the property owner, lessee, operator, or manager. State law also prohibits licensees from bringing a handgun onto fifteen other types of property (e.g., any “building or office owned, leased, or used by the State or a county, and adjacent grounds and parking areas,” “any beach, playground, park, or adjacent parking area,” “any bar or restaurant serving alcohol or intoxicating liquor,” and more). Essentially, Hawaii annulled the general right to publicly carry arms for self-defense through an overly aggressive “sensitive places” designation and by imposing a legal presumption for private property that automatically defaults to “no carry.”
The new bill, Senate Bill 3041 (“relating to public safety”) was introduced on January 23 by Sen. Chris Lee (D) and passed first reading just three days later.
Perhaps unwisely (given the active litigation), lawmakers used the bill as an opportunity to get a dig in at the Supreme Court, with a preamble that alleges the Court “made life more dangerous” for state residents due to the case of New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen “allowing lethal firearms and large knives in many places where there was previously no expectation they would be encountered by the public.”
S.B. 3041 would oblige the owners of businesses open to the public to “post a color-coded placard indicating whether the business or restaurant allows firearms or large knives to be brought onto the premises,” in a location “clearly visible to the general public and patrons entering the business or restaurant.” Legislators were unable to restrain themselves from turning the universally accepted standard color-coding on its head, because under this bill a “green placard shall indicate that the business or restaurant does not allow firearms or large knives,” while a red placard indicates “that the business or restaurant allows firearms and large knives.” Adding to the overall confusion, a “yellow placard shall indicate that the business or restaurant allows either firearms or large knives to be brought onto the premises, but not both,” without further clarity on what that actually means.
There are other problems with the bill. The definition of a “large knife” is basically left as a “fill in the blank” (“Large knife means a knife with a blade more than inches in length”). A failure to post the necessary placard shuts down the business completely, because it is “unlawful to operate a business or restaurant unless the placard is posted.”
In what can only be described as peak anti-gun lunacy, the legislature “believes that to ensure public safety, the public should be given notice whether they might encounter lethal and dangerous weapons in places open to the public,” as if vetted, background-checked, and licensed concealed carry holders are other than notoriously law abiding (and as if “large knives” aren’t ubiquitous in every restaurant kitchen).
More generally, the bill represents a legislative mandate to compel business owners into taking sides in a divisive debate most will have no interest in joining. Experience shows proprietors are usually happy to rely on the neutral default in which a customer invited onto the premises of a private business may enter or remain with whatever lawful articles they happen to have with them. As the prior alert noted, businesses “[b]eing forced to choose a side in a contentious public policy debate that is irrelevant to their own operations is a no-win proposition. Thus, most are unlikely to [voluntarily] post signs advertising a position, whether pro- or anti-gun. To invite customers to carry guns would predictably invite the wrath of politically activated firearm prohibitionists for whom ‘name and shame’ campaigns are already an established modus operandi.”
The First Amendment right to expression also includes a right to be free from compelled speech, something the proponents of this bill are as obviously dismissive of as the Second Amendment right to bear arms.
Indeed, who knows what sort of information will be included on the placards and attributed to the business operator? The state’s Department of Law Enforcement would be responsible for the design of these signs and would be providing businesses and restaurants “with free and easily downloadable placards.”
While there’s no decision in the Wolford case yet, the bill is a clear sign that Hawaii’s politicians are none too confident in the outcome and will be ramping up fresh efforts to suppress citizens’ Second Amendment rights, come what may from the High Court.
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