WASHINGTON, June 25 (DC Times Online) — The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down Hawaii’s so-called “vampire rule,” ruling 6-3 in Washington that the state cannot require concealed-carry permit holders to get a property owner’s permission before entering certain privately owned places open to the public.
Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority in Wolford v. Lopez, said Hawaii’s law “violates the constitutional right to keep and bear arms.” He also wrote that the rule “hobble[s] what the Second Amendment protects: the right of Americans to carry arms for self-defense as they go about their daily lives.”
The ruling adds to a line of Supreme Court decisions on gun rights that began with District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008, when the court struck down Washington, D.C.’s handgun ban, and continued with McDonald v. City of Chicago in 2010, which applied the Second Amendment against state and local governments.
NBC News reported that three liberal justices dissented.
