Today, our firm filed an amicus brief in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to help defend a decision of the district court of Hawaii striking down two state restrictions on firearms purchase. Hawaii law requires that even after obtaining a permit to purchase a specific handgun, the permit expired after 10 days, and then the firearm must be physically carried to a police station for inspection. The district court had ruled that neither requirement was longstanding, wholly unsupported by any public safety rationale, and therefore, using intermediate scrutiny, both restrictions were found to violate the Second Amendment. Our amicus brief argued that the district court should be affirmed, but for the different reason not involving the Ninth Circuit’s two-step, judge empowering, judicial balancing test. We argued that the Hawaii requirements were infringements on the right to keep and bear arms, and violate the text, history, and context of the Second Amendment.
