Hawaii can ban guns on beaches, an appeals court says

HONOLULU -- Hawaii can enforce a law banning firearms on its world-famous beaches, a U.S. appeals court panel ruled Friday.

Three Maui residents sued to block a 2023 state law prohibiting carrying a firearm on the sand and in other places deemed sensitive, including banks, bars and restaurants that serve alcohol. They argued that Hawaii went too far with its wide-ranging ban.

A U.S. district court judge in Honolulu granted a preliminary injunction against the rule last year and Hawaii appealed. On Friday, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals published an opinion reversing the lower court ruling on beaches, parks, bars and restaurants that serve alcohol. The panel affirmed the ruling for banks and certain parking lots.

“The record supports the conclusion that modern-day beaches in Hawaii, particularly in urban or resort areas, often resemble modern-day parks,” more so than beaches at the founding of the nation, the unanimous ruling said.

Hawaii, which has long had some of the nation's toughest firearm restrictions and lowest rates of gun violence, has been wrestling with how to square its gun laws with a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling expanding the right to bear arms. The high court found that people have a constitutional right to carry weapons in public and that measures to restrict that right must be consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.

“I'm disappointed that the 9th Circuit did not look at our ... challenge to rural parks and beaches,” which can be dangerous and require people to protect themselves, said Alan Beck, an attorney representing the Maui residents and the Hawaii Firearms Coalition. He plans to ask for a review by a fuller panel of judges, he said.

The Hawaii attorney general's office issued a statement noting that the 9th Circuit also upheld a rule prohibiting the carrying of firearms on private property owned by another without their consent.

“This is a significant decision recognizing that the state’s public safety measures are consistent with our nation’s historical tradition," Hawaii Solicitor General Kalikoʻonālani Fernandes said in the statement.

The ruling also applies to a similar challenge to a California ban on carrying guns in certain public places, upholding an injunction on enforcing restrictions on firearms at hospitals, similar medical facilities, public transit, gatherings that require a permit, places of worship, financial institutions, parking areas and similar areas connected to those places.

As in Hawaii, the ruling allows California to enforce bans in bars and restaurants that serve alcohol, and in parks. It also allows California bans for other places including casinos, stadiums and amusement parks.

The California attorney general's office said it was reviewing the decision.

Residents carrying guns in public is still fairly new to Hawaii. Before the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision expanded gun rights nationwide, Hawaii’s county police chiefs made it virtually impossible to carry a gun by rarely issuing permits to do so — either for open carry or concealed carry. Gun owners were only allowed to keep firearms in their homes or to bring them — unloaded and locked up — to shooting ranges, hunting areas and places such as repair shops.

That ruling prompted the state to retool its gun laws, with Democratic Gov. Josh Green signing legislation to allow more people to carry concealed firearms.

It also prompted Hawaii and California to pass laws restricting guns in places that are deemed sensitive.