Opinion
USA – -(Ammoland.com)- “It may be years before Hawaii sees changes to its firearms law following the July 24 ruling by a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that the state’s requirement for a license to openly carry a firearm in public violates the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment,” the Honolulu Star Advertiser reported last Thursday. “
Former law enforcement officer George K. Young Jr. of Hilo sued the state and state and county officials including the Hawaii County police chief in 2012, after the chief twice rejected his application for a license to carry a handgun.”
They were citing an opinion from retired State Supreme Court Justice and current Honolulu Police Commission Vice Chair Steven Levinson, who may be right about this despite his astounding ignorance on related facts about the case. Levinson makes no bones about supporting citizen disarmament, invoking the long-discredited “Dodge City” meme the antis were raising decades ago to try and strangle a nascent concealed carry movement in its crib.
It’s also pretty telling that Levinson’s being presented as an expert commentator, but can’t even tell if the National Rifle Association was the driving force behind the challenge to Hawaii’s infringements against bearing arms. It was not. The case was the work of attorney Alan Beck.
Per Beck:
“I have received no help from any gun rights organization. I conducted the appeal entirely on my own from 2012 until 2015. In 2015 my good friend attorney Stephen Stamboulieh made an appearance in the case. We are representing Mr. Young pro bono because no attorney in the State of Hawaii would take his case and Mr. Young has had his constitutional rights violated. It is an honor to vindicate Mr. Young’s constitutional rights.”
Here’s where Levinson may be right: Don’t be surprised to see a long and drawn-out appeal for the entire 9th to hear the case. Whatever happens there, expect to see it appealed. Once that happens, expect to wait some more for the Supreme Court to decide if it’s going to hear it or not. (I agree with Beck that “the Supreme Court [will be] receptive to this,” but there are no guarantees and who knows how – and how quickly – the political winds will change?)
In the mean time, with the refusal to allow either open or concealed carry, Hawaii remains essentially a “gun-free zone” once citizens leave their homes. As we’ve seen in an earlier report, “may issue” for concealed carry translates not just into “may not,” but into “Hell no.”
“A right delayed is a right denied,” Martin Luther King, Jr. proclaimed in his 1962 civil rights speech to the New York State Civil War Centennial Commission.
That’s exactly what’s happening in Hawaii and in plenty of other places in the land of the Second Amendment. That we as individuals must take on a government with limitless resources to fight for our entitlements is an intolerable situation. It’s made more so with the realization that defying the diktats of tyrants in any other way makes us “criminals.”
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating / defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament.
In addition to being a field editor/columnist at GUNS Magazine and associate editor for Oath Keepers, he blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.