Democrat lawmakers in Hawaii have proposed repealing the Second Amendment nationwide in an effort to prevent future mass shootings.
Hawaii has a history of enacting gun control. In 2016, Hawaii became the first state in the country to add gun owners in the state to the FBI’s centralized database (known as “Rap Back”), which allows federal authorities to notify local law enforcement when a gun owner is arrested. That bill, SB 2954, was co-sponsored by Sen. Roz Baker, who also introduced this week’s resolution.
Resolution co-sponsor Stanley Chang has a similar history of advocating gun control measures, while other legislators who introduced SCR No.42, like Sen. Laura Thielsen and Sen. Karl Rhoads, have likewise supported other anti-Second Amendment policies.
The Supreme Court settled the issue in 2008 in the landmark District of Columbia v. Heller decision, a ruling the resolution says “revitalized” the discussion of individual versus collective rights with respect to firearm ownership.
Scalia was joined in that ruling by Chief Justice John Roberts, as well as Justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito. The individual right interpretation was expanded and made the law of the land in 2010’s McDonald v. Chicago decision.
The difference in Second Amendment interpretations is significant.
As Dahlia Lithwick of Slate has explained, a collective interpretation of the Second Amendment is one generally championed by gun control activists. It holds that the Second Amendment “only protects the states’ authority to maintain formal, organized militias.” As such, the Second Amendment would only apply to federal gun regulations, leaving state and local governments to regulate and prohibit gun ownership as they saw fit.
Hawaii’s attempt comes one week after House Democrats passed the first major gun control legislation in years.
Hawaii’s attempt to have Congress consider whether the Second Amendment should be “repealed or amended” comes one week after House Democrats passed the first major gun control legislation in years.
Individuals will, of course, decide for themselves whether the Founders intended the Second Amendment to be an individual or a collective right. But their own words can help shed light on the issue.
“No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms,” Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1776 while drafting the Constitution for Virginia.
This is not the first time Democratic senators in the state of Hawaii have called for congressional action on guns and gun violence, nor is it the first time the state has asserted its right to restrict gun rights. In 2018, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found the state had violated the Second Amendment when law enforcement denied a Vietnam veteran the right to open carry a handgun.
Hawaii fought the decision, and the court agreed last month to revisit its ruling, which could ultimately bring the case to the Supreme Court.
The resolution introduced this week now awaits a vote in the state’s legislature.