The Hawaii Supreme Court handed down a unanimous opinion on Wednesday declaring that its state constitution grants individuals absolutely no right to keep and bear arms outside the context of military service. Its decision rejected the U.S. Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Second Amendment, refusing to interpolate SCOTUS’ shoddy historical analysis into Hawaii law. Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern discussed the ruling on this week’s Slate Plus segment of Amicus; their conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
::sigh::
This is a bad ruling; Hawai’i is saying that their state laws and traditions take precedent over federal laws, the US constitution, and SCOTUS rulings. It’s intentionally trying to undermine the concept of the rule of law in order to get the result that they want. That’s not a “devastating rebuke”, it’s a toddler screaming about not getting candy in the supermarket.
This is counter to the concept of the rule of law, and should be seen as an embarrassment, not something to celebrate.
It appears Hawai’i is parroting decisions by redder states, in an effort to force the SCOTUS to rule broadly on the question of Supremacy (or, at least, try and split the baby in some coherent way).
Its counter to the concept of Federalism, but right in line with the Seperatist theory of law that quite a few modern day politicians happily espouse when it suits them.