WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday weighs a challenge to a Hawaii gun restriction dubbed the “vampire rule” because, as with the fictional creatures in folk tales and the novel “Dracula,” people carrying firearms are required to seek permission before entering private property.
The justices will weigh whether the requirement, enacted in 2023 as part of a broader gun law, violates the Constitution’s Second Amendment, which protects the right to bear arms.
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority regularly backs gun rights.
Although in most states the law assumes that people can enter private properties while armed if they have a concealed carry permit, several states have joined Hawaii in flipping that rule. The others are New York, New Jersey, Maryland and California.
The Hawaii measure concerns a host of private properties that are generally open to the public, such as gas stations, stores and restaurants. Lower courts have partly blocked other provisions of the law that impose different restrictions on where people can take guns.
People who violate the private property provision can face up to a year in prison.
The law was challenged by three gun owners with concealed carry licenses, Maui residents Jason Wolford, Alison Wolford and Atom Kasprzycki, as well as the Hawaii Firearms Coalition, a gun rights group. The Trump administration has filed a brief backing the challengers.
A federal judge earlier blocked the private property provision, but the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in the state’s favor in a September 2024 ruling.
Gun rights advocates say the “vampire rule” effectively nullifies the right to carry a firearm in public, which the Supreme Court endorsed in a major 2022 ruling that found for the first time that the right to bear arms under the Constitution’s Second Amendment extends outside the home.
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