AUSTIN – Attorney General Ken Paxton joined a multistate amicus brief demanding that the U.S. Supreme Court uphold Hawaiians’ Second Amendment rights to bear arms outside their homes.
In a 2020 decision, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the State of Hawaii’s refusal to allow its citizens the right to carry firearms outside of their homes. But the Second Amendment protects both the rights to keep and to bear arms, not just the right to keep them. The amicus brief also asks the Supreme Court to resolve a split among the federal circuit courts of appeals, several of which have resisted the Court’s clear and ringing affirmation of Americans’ Second Amendment rights in its landmark 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, a press release from Paxton’s office stated.
“The blatant misinterpretation of the Second Amendment by the Ninth Circuit must be remedied,” Attorney General Paxton said. “We are asking for the Court to simply uphold the Second Amendment as it is written. The lower courts have flagrantly disregarded the Supreme Court’s instructions in Heller, leaving the right to bear arms in jeopardy. We must have a clear and concise ruling that protects the Second Amendment from lower courts’ hostility to gun rights to prevent this type of infringement from happening yet again.”
The full amicus brief may be read here.
