The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a pair of key gun rights cases in the coming months, and other Second Amendment cases could make their way on the docket as the justices consider additional petitions for this term.
The high court issued a mix of rulings during its previous term, upholding Biden-era regulations on “ghost guns” in Bondi v. VanDerStok while unanimously tossing Mexico’s lawsuit against gunmakers in Smith & Wesson Brands v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos. For the current term, the high court has agreed to hear two cases where the potential to loosen liberal gun laws is the center of the litigation.
Hawaii handgun restrictions case
The first major gun case the justices agreed to hear was Wolford v. Lopez, granting the petition for writ of certiorari earlier this month. The high court will hear whether a Hawaii law, which bars handgun owners who have a concealed carry permit from carrying their weapon on private property unless the owner, or manager of the property, has given the person “express authorization to carry a firearm on the property,” violates the Second Amendment.
The coalition of Hawaii gunowners suing the Aloha State over the 2023 law argued to the Supreme Court in its brief that the law effectively violates the “general right to public carry” the high court upheld in its 2022 decision in New York Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.
“Bruen found such a rule swept ‘far too broadly’ because it ‘would in effect exempt cities from the Second Amendment and would eviscerate the general right to publicly carry arms for self-defense,'” the brief said. “Hawaii’s law effectively does the same thing.”
The group argues the appeals court found the “Second Amendment does not apply to private property open to the public,” which “renders illusory the right to carry in public.”
Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez defended the law in her brief to the high court, arguing it is lawful under Supreme Court precedent, including the 1951 ruling in Breard v. City of Alexandria, which found that door-to-door solicitation could be restricted by a city without violating the First Amendment.
“Thus, just as the City in Breard did not impermissibly infringe the speech rights of solicitors by enacting an ordinance to vindicate its citizens’ presumptive desire to exclude solicitors, Hawai‘i does not impermissibly infringe Second Amendment rights by enacting a law vindicating its citizens’ presumptive desire to prevent armed entry onto their private property,” Lopez argued. “In both instances, the governmental action does not fall afoul of constitutionally protected rights.”
Michael Williams, general counsel for the pro-gun group American Suppressor Association, told the Washington Examiner the law at the center of the case makes it “basically impossible for anybody who wants to be law abiding to actually exercise their constitutional right to bear arms outside the home.”
“It goes exactly counter to Justice [Clarence] Thomas’s comment in Bruen, which was, ‘sensitive places’ are a thing, but, for instance, the state of New York could not make the island of Manhattan itself a ‘sensitive place,'” Williams said. “Well, Hawaii is basically making the island chain of Hawaii, a ‘sensitive place.'”
The Trump administration has put its weight behind the coalition of gunowners, arguing to the Supreme Court that Hawaii’s law runs afoul of the Bruen decision and inhibits Hawaiians’ Second Amendment rights.
“The structure and operation of Hawaii’s law reveal that the law serves no legitimate purpose and instead seeks only to inhibit the exercise of the right to bear arms. Hawaii’s default rule applies only to firearms—not to anything else that a person might bring with him into a privately owned area that is open to the public,” the Justice Department told the high court in a brief.
The Supreme Court has yet to schedule oral arguments for the case, but the ruling in Wolford v. Lopez is expected to have sweeping ramifications for state laws aiming to restrict firearms in “sensitive areas,” less than four years after the Bruen ruling.
Illegal drug user gun possession law
The other gun case the Supreme Court has so far agreed to hear could affect the gun rights of marijuana users, putting the legality of a federal statute barring firearm possession of any person who “is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance” under the microscope in United States v. Hemani.
The Justice Department has asked the high court to reverse a lower court’s ruling striking down 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(3), arguing the provision is lawful under the Second Amendment.
“That provision targets a category of persons who pose a clear danger of misusing firearms: habitual users of unlawful drugs. Moreover, Section 922(g)(3) bars their possession of firearms only temporarily and leaves it within their power to lift the restriction at any time; anyone who stops habitually using illegal drugs can resume possessing firearms. Founding-era history, post-ratification history, and precedent all support the congressional judgment underlying that restriction,” the DOJ argued in its brief.
Ali Hemani, who brought the challenge to the law after being indicted under it, argued the law is unconstitutional under the Bruen decision. His lawyers also noted that various states have legalized marijuana, but since since the drug remains illegal under federal law, millions of gunowners are potentially exposed to federal charges.
“Americans who lawfully use cannabis under state law and possess a firearm are in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3) could be charged and sentenced to a term of imprisonment up to 15 years. Under Petitioner’s interpretation of the statute, millions of Americans are currently violating Section 922(g)(3) and do so on a continuing basis,” Hemani’s lawyer argued to the high court in a brief.
“It bears repeating that nothing in Section 922(g)(3) requires ‘habitual use’ as an element of the offense. Any American who owns a firearm and uses a controlled substance which is illegal under federal law violates § 922(g)(3) under Petitioner’s theory,” the brief continued.
Justices could take up more gun cases this term
While the Supreme Court has already slotted more than three dozen cases for its current term, it will likely still take up at least two dozen more cases to review in the coming months. Among the petitions the Supreme Court has yet to respond to, there are several key gun cases which the high court could take up in this term.
While predicting which petitions the Supreme Court will take up for arguments is difficult, Williams said the high court appears to be focusing on 2nd Amendment cases related to who can possess firearms and where, rather than over which “hardware” is legal.
“If you look holistically at what they’ve decided to take and not take, they seem to be going in this direction of staying away, for now, from hardware questions,” Williams told the Washington Examiner. “So what technology is covered by the Second Amendment?”
He pointed to the high court taking up the questions of who “can be constitutionally excluded” from possessing firearms, like in Hemani and the 2024 ruling in Rahimi v. United States, which upheld restrictions on domestic violence offenders from possessing guns, along with the questions of “what are the limits of ‘bear arms'” under the Second Amendment are, like in Wolford.
One recurring gun law issue which has several pending petitions involves the Second Amendment rights of 18-20 year olds.
With NRA v. Glass, the National Rifle Association argues Florida’s ban on adults under 21 from getting firearms is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment. The petition asking the high court to hear the case notes the split between federal appeals courts as the reason for why the justices should review the case.
“The right to keep and bear arms ‘belongs to all Americans,’ not ‘an unspecified subset,'” the brief said. “Yet the federal courts of appeals are divided over the extent to which the government may prevent 18-to-20-year-old adults from exercising that right—including over whether it may bar them from purchasing the firearms they wish to keep and bear.”
The issue of Second Amendment rights for adults under the age of 21 is also at the center of the petition for Paris v. Second Amendment Foundation. The appeal from Pennsylvania officials in that case seeks to reverse an appeals court’s ruling that struck down a state law restricting gun-rights of adults under the age of 21.
The petition to the high court asks the justices to determine if firearm laws which that a minimum age of 21 violate the Second Amendment rights of 18-20 year olds, again noting the split between appeals courts on the issue.
“The federal government and 32 states establish 21 as the minimum age for certain gun rights. Since
United States v. Rahimi, five courts of appeals have considered whether these widespread laws violate the purported Second Amendment rights of 18-to-20-year olds. Those Courts are sharply divided in both method and result,” the petition said.
“This Court’s review is necessary to resolve this acknowledged split on an important, recurring issue. Law enforcement officials need clarity before the confusion deepens,” the petition continued.
Williams said the question of Second Amendment rights for adults under the age of 21 would fit into the “comfort zone” of gun cases the justices have opted to take in recent years.
EIGHT CASES TO WATCH IN THE NEW SUPREME COURT TERM
Another petition challenging laws restricting gun rights of 18-20 year old comes in West Virginia Citizens Defense League v. ATF, which challenges a federal law banning the sale of handguns to adults under 21 years old. The Justice Department has asked the high court not to hear the case until the Wolford and Hemani cases have been decided.
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments for all cases this term through the end of April 2026, with all decisions in those cases expected by the end of June 2026.
