YUKUTAKE V. LOPEZ:  9th Circuit Upholds Hawaii Gun-Purchase Restrictions

AMMOLAND: “In a 6–5 en banc decision in Yukutake v. Lopez, the court reversed a permanent injunction against Hawaii’s 30-day handgun-permit deadline and its requirement that certain newly acquired firearms be physically presented to police for inspection.”

TEXT OF SUMMARY PREPARED BY COURT STAFF

(This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.)

The en banc court reversed the district court’s injunction that blocked the implementation of the State of Hawaii’s firearm licensing regime on Second Amendment grounds, and remanded for further proceedings.

Hawaii is a “shall-issue” jurisdiction for firearm permits, meaning that as long as an applicant satisfies certain requirements, they may obtain a firearm. This differs from a “may-issue” regime, where the State retains some discretion in deciding whether to issue a firearm license to an applicant.

Plaintiffs Todd Yukutake and David Kikukawa challenged the constitutionality of two requirements of Hawaii’s shall-issue regime:

1) Hawaii Revised Statutes § 134-2(e), which provides a narrow time window within which to acquire a handgun after obtaining the requisite permit; and

2) Hawaii Revised Statutes § 134-3, which provides that once the applicant has obtained the firearm, a form with information about the firearm must be completed, and one must bring the firearm to a police station for inspection in certain circumstances.

The district court granted summary judgment to Plaintiffs, concluding that the challenged aspects of both provisions were facially unconstitutional under the Second Amendment and permanently enjoined their enforcement.

After the injunction was entered, the Supreme Court issued New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), which outlined how courts should analyze shall-issue regimes like Hawaii’s. While Bruen instructs courts to engage in a two-step inquiry when evaluating Second Amendment claims, the en banc court wrote that Bruen distinguished shall-issue from may-issue regimes and, in footnote 9, included an apparent carve-out to the two-step test, providing that objective, non-abusive “shall-issue” licensing regimes are presumptively constitutional. The en banc court further wrote that despite a wide range of methodological approaches to assessing shall-issue regulations after Bruen, the circuit courts have converged on one unifying principle: non-abusive, shall-issue laws comport with the Second Amendment.

With the guidance of Bruen, the en banc court held that Hawaii’s shall-issue regime comports with the Second Amendment because Plaintiffs failed to show that the two challenged provisions, which are presumptively lawful, have been put toward abusive ends that would effectively deny ordinary citizens their Second Amendment rights. Rather, at most, the provisions impose only modest, procedural burdens, and do not materially impede Plaintiffs from acquiring firearms.

Dissenting, Judge R. Nelson, joined by Judges Bress and VanDyke, and joined except as to Part I–C by Judges Bade and Forrest, wrote that the majority incorrectly holds that footnote 9 of Bruen creates a “carve-out” or “safe harbor” from Second Amendment scrutiny, and is thus analytically distinct from Bruen’s framework. He wrote that the correct application of Bruen to Hawaii’s regulations makes this case straightforward. First, the Second Amendment’s plain text covers the acquisition of arms, and Hawaii’s statewide restrictions govern the process by which ordinary citizens take possession of handguns. Second, Hawaii has not identified a representative historical analogue for either its short permit use period or its acquisition-linked inspection mandate. Accordingly, because Hawaii has not carried the burden Bruen places on the government, the en banc court should have affirmed the district court’s judgment.

Dissenting, Judge Forrest joined all but Part I–C of Judge Nelson’s opinion explaining the problems with the majority’s approach and wrote separately to address the scope of the injunction issued. Judge Forrest would have affirmed the district court on the merits and remanded with instructions for the district court to narrow its permanent injunction in light of Trump v. CASA, Inc., 606 U.S 831 (2025), because there is no need to enjoin enforcement of Hawaii’s challenged laws against anyone other than Plaintiffs to afford Plaintiffs complete relief.

Dissenting, Judge VanDyke proposed two “bright-line” rules that he believes could resolve a large part of this court’s Second Amendment cases and accord with Supreme Court precedent:

(1) if a firearm product or usage that a state seeks to ban is currently prevalent throughout our nation, then it should simply be unconstitutional to ban it; and

(2) if a state has a firearm regulation that most other states don’t have, then the regulation should be unconstitutional.

 Applying these bright-line rules, Judge VanDyke would hold that because the challenged regulations here are outliers, they are unconstitutional….

read … RULING

AMMOLAND: Ninth Circuit Flips Bruen Burden in Hawaii Gun Case