BELLEVUE, WA – The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms has filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit supporting the challenge of Hawaii’s “sensitive places” statute which places sweeping limitations on where legally-armed citizens may carry firearms for personal defense.
Joining CCRKBA in this brief are the Firearms Policy Coalition, FPC Action Foundation, California Gun Rights Foundation, the Center for Human Liberty and Dr. Angus Kirk McClellan, former college professor and historian. They are represented by attorneys Bradley A. Benbrook and Stephen M. Duvernay, Benbrook Law Group in Sacramento, Calif. The case is known as Wolford v. Lopez, with Hawaii Attorney General Anne E. Lopez named as the defendant, in her official capacity.
The 41-page brief details why the restrictive Hawaii law is inconsistent with the original meaning of the Second Amendment as the Framers understood it, as required by the 2022 Supreme Court’s Bruen decision.
“As we explain in the brief,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “the locations Hawaii now hopes to treat as ‘sensitive’ cannot possibly be analogized to the core founding-era sensitive locations recognized in Bruen and District of Columbia v. Heller. The historical record shows that, at the founding, carry restrictions were strictly limited to locations where the government provided comprehensive security, which stands in stark contrast to Hawaii’s sweeping restrictions.”
The brief offers specific examples of “sensitive areas” in several states, with the common thread among them being the government’s provision of armed security at such locations. The Hawaii law, however, essentially prohibits legal firearms carry in a variety of locations including parks and ocean beaches.
“The State’s bans encompass a broad swath of locations that ordinary individuals visit on a routine basis,” the brief notes. “Most important, these locations lack ubiquitous state-provided security in any way comparable to armed security in contained locations.”