The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) has filed an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court supporting Hawaii resident Christopher L. Wilson’s petition for a writ of certiorari in his challenge of the Hawaii state Supreme Court’s decree that individual citizens in the Aloha State do not have the right to carry firearms for self-defense outside their homes.
SAF is represented in its effort by attorneys Edward A. Paltzik, Serge Krimnus and Meredith Lloyd at Bochner PLLC in New York, N.Y.
“When the Hawaii Supreme Court brazenly declared in February that the Second Amendment essentially does not exist within the state,” noted SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb, “we were stunned. This declaration is so astonishing in its nature that the U.S. Supreme Court simply cannot allow one-tenth of the Bill of Rights to be arbitrarily erased. Hawaii is still part of the United States. It is not a police state.”
“The Hawaii court has reduced an established right protected by the federal Constitution,” said SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut. “This is nothing short of open rebellion against the Supremacy Clause. Lawless judicial activism of such an extreme nature, if left undisturbed, would set a dangerous precedent that State supreme courts are free to tunnel below the constitutional floor of the Second Amendment.
Millions of peaceable, law-abiding adults would be deprived of their fundamental right to carry firearms in public for self-defense based on geographical luck of the draw. As a consequence of such chaos, the Second Amendment would be rendered dead letter.”
In its petition, SAF makes clear the Second Amendment is not a “second-class right” subject to the political and philosophical whims of state Supreme Courts. The “Aloha Spirit” does not trump the U.S. Constitution. This is a non-negotiable matter of federalism.
The Second Amendment Foundation (saf.org) is the nation’s oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, SAF has grown to more than 720,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control.
