When the Hawaii state Supreme Court ruled that the state's gun control was constitutional because of the "Aloha Spirit," I rolled my eyes so hard I saw my brain. Spoiler: Gray matter is only sorta gray.
Anyway, now the state is looking at the United States Supreme Court, and we need to understand the foibles Hawaii keeps making in its incessant desire to restrict gun rights.
And yes, invoking the "Aloha Spirit" is still part of the cards, it seems.
From our friends at Ammoland:
As is SOP in these cases, the attorneys invoke Hawaiian culture, saying polls show most Hawaiians oppose public carry. This is consistent with the “Aloha Spirit” theme used by the Hawaii Supreme Court’s 2024 ruling in Wilson v. Hawaii.
In a flight of judicial fantasy worthy of Samuel Taylor Coleridge at his opium-addled best, Hawaii’s top court said the state’s constitution did not include an individual right to keep and bear arms and so Hawaii didn’t have to recognize the right in the federal constitution. The court also invoked 19th-century Hawaiian kings and their edicts, which generally prohibited possession and carrying of dangerous weapons. Over multiple generations, this became embedded in general society. The Hawaii Supreme Court called it the “Aloha Spirit” and said it meant Hawaii didn’t have to adhere to the federal version.
History shows that Hawaii is not only bound by the federal constitution, more than 90% of its citizens approved it. It wasn’t really all that new: Hawaii had been a U.S. territory since 1893.
Act of March 18, 1959 (now Public Law 86-3, 73 STAT 4) An Act to provide for the admission of the state of Hawaii into the Union.
Passed by the Senate on March 11, 1959; passed the House on March 14; signed into law by President Eisenhower on March 18, 1959; overwhelmingly approved by popular vote of Hawaiian citizens on June 27; proclamation of admission signed by President Eisenhower on August 21, 1959.
“§3. The constitution of the State of Hawaii shall always be republican in form and shall not be repugnant to the Constitution of the United States and the principles of the Declaration of Independence.”
I feel certain the “Aloha Spirit” would be repugnant to the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence would be at least somewhat miffed by the Hawaii Supreme Court’s cavalier disregard of a fundamental human right.
That’s the whole agreement between the United States and Hawaii as it pertains to the Constitution. Note there’s not a single mention of the “Aloha Spirit.”
Anti-gun attorneys for anti-gun states often invoke polling data to try to prove that people support unconstitutional measures, as if that somehow matters. I'm pretty sure the Southern states could have shown polling data that slavery was popular back before the Civil War. That doesn't mean it was right to keep humans in bondage for no reason.
The reason we're a constitutional republic, as opposed to a true democracy, is to oppose the tyranny of the majority. If the majority has total power, they can override the rights of the minority. That minority can be literally any group that is on the outs with the larger chunk of the population, which means gun owners included.
Is that the "Aloha Spirit" the state cited? Really?
The truth is that, regardless of any state's "Aloha Spirit" or such nonsense, there's nowhere near the historic support for such a law needed to uphold it under Bruen. Even though Rahimi muddied the water severely, I just don't see any analog being presented that actually shows this falls under the historic tradition of gun regulation at all.
But that's not what it's about. It's about Hawaii, as many other anti-gun states do, thinking that its desires supersede the Second Amendment simply because they really, really want it to.
The so-called vampire rule makes a mockery of people's rights. It operates from an idea that your rights are non-existent on private property without express permission to exercise them, but only your gun rights. We would never implement such a law barring saying grace in a restaurant without the owner's approval, or trying to regulate customers' discussions in a department store.
If that is the "Aloha Spirit," then maybe the use of the word "aloha" isn't a greeting and farewell, but really just a word meaning you should know your place, peasant.
