Ninth Circuit (Finally) Rules Hawaii’s Gun Purchase Permit and Registration Time Limits are Unconstitutional

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has long been actively hostile to Second Amendment rights. But reflexively swatting down challenges to gun control laws like microstamping mandates, gun bans, magazine capacity limits, ammunition background checks and so many more has gotten increasingly difficult in recent years, especially since Bruen became the law of the land.

But never underestimate a judicial body’s ability to find ways of accomplishing its goals via other means, no matter how questionable they may be. Take, for instance, the Golden State’s “assault weapons” ban. The law was declared unconstitutional back in October of 2023 by District Judge Roger Benitez. As you’d expect, California AG Rob Bonta immediately appealed the ruling and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay to keep the ban in place why they considered the case.

The Ninth heard oral arguments in the case in January of 2024. And that’s where the case sits more than a year later. Short of filing a writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court, there’s little that can be done to get a Circuit Court of Appeals to move its collective judicial ass and issue a ruling. The Ninth, which is quite sympathetic to California’s insatiable desire to limit its citizens’ gun rights, know this, of course, and is in no hurry to move things along, especially when the case law is decidedly against you.

That explains the amount of time a Ninth Circuit three-judge panel took to decide a case it ruled on today out of Hawaii. Yakutake v. Lopez challenged Hawaii’s ridiculously small time window citizens have to legally buy a firearm after the state deigns to grant them permission to do so.

If you’re not familiar with Hawaii’s ludicrously restrictive gun laws — and there’s no reason you should be — once a permit to purchase is issued, the individual then must buy the firearm within a certain time period. The law originally limited the period to 10 days (for handguns…long gun purchase permits are good for a year). Once the challenge was filed and began to progress, Hawaii extended the time period to 30 days, no doubt hoping that would be enough to moot the case.

There’s a second aspect of the law. Once the firearm is purchased, it then needs to be registered. That’s done by physically bringing the gun into your local police department for a “safety inspection” and registration. But the law gives citizens only five days to get that done.

Both requirements — the period allowed to buy the gun and the even shorter period to get it registered — were what was being challenged in Yakutake. Today, in a two-to-one ruling, the Ninth Circuit panel upheld a lower court that ruled both needlessly short time limits violate the Second Amendment. That’s because the 2A includes the right to acquire firearms and Hawaii’s legal limits on the process are undue burdens that are civil rights violations.

Note, however, that this case was argued in February of 2023. So it’s taken the three-judge panel more than two years to rule on the case. Because of course it did. This is the Ninth Circuit we’re talking about. They consistently do their level-best never to rule in favor of defending and extending the right to keep and bear arms if they can avoid it. And when there’s no other choice under the law…they delay.

You can read today’s ruling here.

The panel affirmed the district court’s judgment that § 134-2(e)’s short timeframe for completing a firearms purchase after obtaining a permit was unconstitutional under the Second Amendment. The purchase and acquisition of firearms is conduct protected by the plain text of the Second Amendment. Because § 134-2(e) regulates conduct covered by the Second Amendment’s plain text, the Second Amendment presumptively protects that conduct. The burden therefore fell on the State to justify its regulation by demonstrating that it is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearms regulation.

And . . .

The panel affirmed the district court’s conclusion that § 134-3’s in-person inspection requirement violates the Second Amendment. Even assuming arguendo that Hawaii’s basic system of registering firearms by owner, type, serial number, etc., was valid under Bruen—a point the panel did not decide—Hawaii’s broad in-person inspection requirement could not be justified as merely a proper ancillary logistical measure in support of such a system. The government failed to point to evidence supporting its conclusion that the addition of a broadly applicable and burdensome physical inspection requirement will materially advance the objectives of the registration system. 

It’s probably not going too far out on a limb to expect Hawaii’s AG to appeal this ruling, too, asking for an en banc review by the full Ninth Circuit. If granted, that should add another two and a half years to the process. Meanwhile, Hawaiians will still have to deal with their rights being limited in unconstitutionally arbitrary ways. And so it goes.