Supreme Court tackles Hawaii’s ‘vampire rule’ for gun owners
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday considers a challenge to a gun restriction in Hawaii dubbed the “vampire rule” because, like the fictional creatures in folk tales and the novel “Dracula,” people carrying firearms are required to ask permission before entering private property.
The justices will consider whether the requirement, enacted in 2023 as part of a broader gun law, violates the Constitution’s Second Amendment, which protects the right to bear arms.
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority consistently supports gun rights.
Although the law in most states assumes that people can enter private property while armed if they have a concealed carry permit, several states have joined Hawaii in overturning this rule. The others are New York, New Jersey, Maryland and California.
The Hawaiian measure affects a host of private properties generally open to the public, such as gas stations, stores and restaurants. Lower courts have partly blocked other provisions of the law that place different restrictions on where people can take guns.
People who violate the private property provisions can face up to a year in prison.
The law was challenged by three gun owners with concealed carry permits, Maui residents Jason Wolford, Alison Wolford and Atom Kasprzycki, as well as the Hawaii Firearms Coalition, a gun rights group. The Trump administration filed a brief supporting the challengers.
A federal judge previously blocked the private property provision, but the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the state in a September 2024 ruling.
Gun rights advocates say the “vampire rule” effectively nullifies the right to carry a gun in public, which the Supreme Court approved in a major 2022 ruling that concluded for the first time that the right to carry a gun under the Constitution’s Second Amendment extends outside the home.
“Hawaii’s intent to eliminate the right to carry is both obvious and illegitimate,” lawyers for the challengers said in court papers.
Hawaii and gun control advocates point to the state’s distinct interest in protecting property rights, which are also enshrined in the Constitution.
“Since our founding as a nation, private property rights have been fundamental to the American identity and embedded throughout our system of government and our Constitution,” Douglas Letter, legal director of the gun control group Brady, said last week.
The Supreme Court’s 2022 decision led to the passage of a wave of new gun laws and a wave of new challenges to long-standing gun restrictions.
In its most recent Second Amendment case, the court appeared to reverse somewhat in 2024 that 2022 ruling, upholding a federal law that prohibits people subjected to domestic violence from gun ownership.
The justices will hear another gun case in March, on whether a federal law banning illegal drug users from owning firearms is unconstitutional. Hunter Biden, the former president’s son, was convicted under the law before his father granted him clemency.
The concept that vampires cannot enter estates without consent was popularized in Bram Stoker’s classic book “Dracula”, in which one of the characters, Professor Van Helsing, states: “He cannot enter anywhere at first, unless a member of the house asks him to come.” »
