WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that licensed gun owners are allowed to carry their concealed weapon into businesses and stores unless the owner objects to it, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The ruling invalidated a Hawaii law that barred licensed gun owners from carrying concealed handguns onto private property open to the public unless they had the property owner’s express permission, marking a significant new expansion of public carry rights under the Second Amendment.
It also strikes down a California state law prohibiting such conduct, as well as state laws in New York, Maryland and New Jersey.
“While today’s ruling in Wolford is disappointing, owners still have every right to decide whether firearms are allowed in their stores and businesses,” Janet Carter, managing director of Second Amendment Litigation at Everytown Law, told the Los Angeles Times. “The Supreme Court may have changed the default rule, but it cannot take away a private property owner’s authority over their own land.”
The decision in Wolford v. Lopez builds on the Court’s 2022 ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, and sharply limits efforts by states to treat ordinary commercial spaces (such as grocery stores, coffee shops, gas stations and shopping centers) as presumptively gun‑free zones
According to the Los Angeles Times:
The new laws, if upheld, would “impose severe restrictions on the daily activities of residents who have satisfied the state’s rigorous requirements for the issuance of a carry permit. When these permit holders leave home in the morning, … they may also be barred from entering many places that people routinely visit in the course of their daily routines, such as gas stations, convenience stores, restaurants, coffee shops, drug stores, grocery stores, ‘big box’ stores, home improvement stores, barber shops or hair salons, dry cleaners, and laundromats.”
Conservatives hailed the ruling.
“It was a huge day for Second Amendment rights as the Supreme Court ruled in Wolford v. Lopez that concealed carry permit holders cannot be barred on private property” wrote Matt Vespa, the Managing Editor at Townhall.com. “Hawaii is one of the most anti-gun states in the country, and obtaining a permit is already a herculean task. This law essentially gutted the purpose of a carry permit, and the Court remedied that in a 6-3 decision. Under the old law, a carry permit holder would’ve been required to ask permission to enter a grocery store if he or she was carrying, for example. It was madness.”
“This regime hobbles what the second amendment protects: the right of Americans to carry arms for self-defense as they go about their daily lives,” wrote Justice Samuel Alito, according to The Guardian. “We hold that the law is unconstitutional.”
The ruling means that, in most circumstances, a licensed handgun owner may enter a store or restaurant with a concealed weapon unless the owner has clearly signaled that guns are not welcome, for example through posted signs or announced policies.
A default rule overturned
Hawaii’s Act 52, enacted in 2023 after Bruen, adopted one of the nation’s strictest approaches to guns on private property. It made it a crime for concealed‑carry permit holders to bring handguns onto private premises open to the public — including retail shops, hotels, parking lots and many workplaces — unless the owner had given affirmative consent.
The law also declared numerous “sensitive places,” including beaches, parks and establishments serving alcohol, off‑limits to firearms. While those provisions were not before the Court in Wolford, the default rule for private businesses quickly drew legal challenges from gun‑rights advocates, who argued that it effectively turned much of public life into a gun‑free zone.
A federal district judge initially blocked enforcement of the default ban, but in 2024 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reinstated it, upholding Hawaii’s authority to presume that guns were forbidden on private property absent express authorization from the owner. The Supreme Court’s ruling today reverses that appellate decision and reasserts a broader view of the right to carry.
Property rights vs. gun rights
The case forced the justices to confront a fraught question: when a store or restaurant opens its doors to the public, does an implied invitation to enter include an implied invitation to bring a handgun?
Gun‑rights advocates, backed by national organizations, said Hawaii’s law improperly treated every open business as if it had posted “no firearms” signs and that the state, not the property owner, was effectively deciding who could enter armed. They argued that the default rule rendered the right recognized in Bruen nearly meaningless in day‑to‑day life, because most people’s routines involve traversing private commercial spaces.
State officials and gun‑control groups countered that property owners have long held the power to decide what happens on their premises and that requiring affirmative consent simply respected that autonomy. In their view, an invitation to shop did not amount to an invitation to carry a weapon, and the statute placed the burden on gun owners to obtain permission before entering armed.
Justice Alito, relying on the methodology set out in Bruen, concluded that Hawaii’s approach lacked adequate historical support and imposed an undue burden on the right to carry in public. He emphasized that the plaintiffs were licensed, background‑checked permit holders and that the law treated virtually all private commercial property as off‑limits unless owners took affirmative steps to override the ban.
A sharp dissent
The Court’s three liberal justices — Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — dissented, warning that the majority’s reasoning elevated gun rights at the expense of longstanding property rights and public‑safety concerns.
At oral argument in January, some justices had framed the dispute in vivid terms, with one line of questioning characterizing the state’s position as “an invitation to shop is not an invitation to bring your Glock.” The dissent on Thursday echoed that sentiment, arguing that owners should not be forced to assume that customers will arrive armed unless they post warnings at the door.
The dissenters also highlighted Hawaii’s unique history and geography, noting that the state has long maintained some of the country’s strictest gun laws and that communities had embraced limits on firearms as part of a broader public‑safety strategy. They questioned whether the Court’s national standard adequately accounted for those local conditions.
Broader implications beyond Hawaii
Although Wolford arose from a challenge to a single state’s statute, Thursday’s decision carries far‑reaching consequences for other jurisdictions that adopted similar post‑Bruen rules. States including California, New York, New Jersey and Maryland enacted laws that, in varying ways, presumed that guns were banned on private property open to the public unless owners opted in.
Legal experts said Hawaii’s law was among the most expansive, but the Court’s rationale — rejecting a state‑imposed default of “no guns” for permit holders on commercial premises — is likely to undercut parallel provisions elsewhere. Courts in those states will now have to reassess whether such rules can survive under the history‑and‑tradition test the Supreme Court has made central to Second Amendment analysis.
The decision does not strip property owners of the right to keep guns out of their businesses. Instead, it shifts the presumption: licensed gun owners may carry by default in places open to the public, and it is up to proprietors to say otherwise, whether by posting visible signs, adopting written policies, or informing customers directly.
In practical terms, that means an increasing patchwork of rules at the retail level, with individual businesses deciding whether to allow concealed firearms inside, choices that may vary widely by region, industry and clientele.
Another marker in a changing landscape
Thursday’s ruling is the latest in a series of decisions reshaping the legal landscape on guns in America. After Bruen in 2022 broadened public carry rights, lower courts have grappled with how far states can go in declaring “sensitive places” or imposing conditions on where and how licensed gun owners may carry.
By striking down Hawaii’s default ban on guns in private businesses open to the public, the Supreme Court has signaled that blanket prohibitions, even when framed as deference to property owners, face steep constitutional hurdles. The ruling leaves room for targeted regulations — such as restrictions in courthouses, schools or bars — but constrains states’ ability to define everyday commercial spaces as off‑limits to concealed‑carry permit holders.
For gun‑rights advocates, the decision is a major victory, affirming that the right to carry extends into the ordinary venues of daily life unless an owner says no. For officials in Hawaii and other states that have relied on default bans, it poses an urgent policy question: how to balance a broadened constitutional right with local communities’ demands for safety in the very places where Americans shop, eat and gather.
