A gun law passed by Hawaii is testing the Supreme Court’s position in a ruling critics say relied on "beyond stupid" logic to gut modern firearms regulations.
In his latest column, legal commentator Elie Mystal, a columnist for The Nation, tore into the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle Association v. Bruen, a ruling that he told readers on Friday “eviscerated gun regulations in this country” by demanding they resemble regulations from the 18th century.
“To regulate an Uzi, you have to show that a ‘historical twin’ regulation applied to a musket,” Mystal wrote. “The rule is beyond stupid as an intellectual proposition, but it’s also practically unworkable.”
Under Bruen, modern gun laws must be justified by a “historical analogue” dating back to the country’s founding.
“What is a close enough ‘historical analogue?’ he asked. “Nobody knows. Since Bruen, the Supreme Court has been trying to make it up as it goes along.”
That’s where Hawaii stepped in. Instead of challenging the ruling, the state took a different approach by passing a law requiring gun owners receive explicit permission from private property owners before bringing firearms onto their property, Mystal explained in his Friday column. The law became known as the “vampire rule,” the Nation columnist added, based on the old trope that vampires must be invited inside before entering a home.
“According to the Supreme Court’s own logic in Bruen, Hawaii’s law should be upheld,” he wrote. “The state can cite historical analogues for its rules that go well beyond Nosferatu. In 1763 and 1771, New York and New Jersey respectively imposed similar restrictions.”
But, as Mystal noted, the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority appears all but poised to strike the Hawaii law down anyway.
“When a gun regulation doesn’t have a doppelgänger from the 18th freaking century, Republicans will strike down the law because the Second Amendment allegedly means the same thing now as it did then,” he concluded Friday. “When a gun regulation does have a doppelgänger from the 18th century, the Republicans will strike down the law because the Second Amendment magically means something different now from what it meant then.”
