Hawaii’s limits on open carry of guns won’t change soon, former justice says

It may be years before Hawaii sees changes to its firearms law following the July 24 ruling by a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that the state’s requirement for a license to openly carry a firearm in public violates the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment.

That’s the opinion of retired state Supreme Court Justice Steven Levinson, a Honolulu police commissioner. Levinson discussed the court’s open-carry ruling Wednesday at a Honolulu Police Commission meeting.

It will take at least a year in the likely event Hawaii County asks the 9th Circuit for further review and to have the case heard by an 11-judge panel, Levinson said.

The case would likely go up to the U.S. Supreme Court, and that could take another two years. In the meantime, “the judgment of the three-member panel is stayed, so the status quo stays in place,” he said.

Former law enforcement officer George K. Young Jr. of Hilo sued the state and state and county officials including the Hawaii County police chief in 2012, after the chief twice rejected his application for a license to carry a handgun.

The three 9th Circuit Court judges issued a 2-1 decision that the state’s law violated the Second Amendment right to bear arms, with Hawaii’s Richard Clifton the dissenting voice.

In Hawaii, the police chief of each county is responsible for handling firearm registrations and issuing licenses.

Under Hawaii law, residents can own firearms and keep them in their homes, however, traveling with guns is heavily restricted. In exceptional cases, a police chief can grant a license to carry a loaded handgun to residents who show reason to fear injury. In practice, getting a license to carry a loaded gun in Hawaii is rare.

“The bottom line is that the state cannot be more restrictive than what the Second Amendment allows,” Levinson said, adding that it will take the U.S. Supreme Court to decide what that entails.

Currently 31 states allow open carry of a handgun without license or permit. Hawaii is one of 15 states requiring a license or permit. Six ban it.

Police commissioner Shannon Alivado asked, “With this decision, how is it going to be interpreted by the Legislature?” She wanted to know “whether it’s opening up the floodgates for open carry.”

Levinson noted such lawsuits are happening around the U.S.

“It looks to me like an NRA (National Rifle Association) project,” he said. “I don’t know if it is or isn’t,” but he noted the lawyers representing plaintiffs in this and another pending case before the U.S. District Court in Hawaii regarding civilians carrying Tasers are from the mainland.

A conservative U.S. Supreme Court may reach the same conclusion as the lower court, he said, noting President Donald Trump-­appointed nominee Brett Kavanaugh has written that the Second Amendment protects the right to carry firearms.

Levinson said he supports Hawaii’s strict gun laws.

“As a judge I was a great fan of our gun control laws,” he said. “I don’t want to see Tombstone, Arizona, and Dodge City, Kansas, under Wyatt Earp anymore, but that’s the way it is in a lot of states. Ultimately the U.S. Supreme Court will tell us.”

An earlier version of this story misidentified the U.S. District Court in Hawaii as the 9th Circuit regarding civilians carrying Tasers.