The Hawaii Supreme Court handed down a unanimous opinion on Wednesday declaring that its state constitution grants individuals absolutely no right to keep and bear arms outside the context of military service. Its decision rejected the U.S. Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Second Amendment, refusing to interpolate SCOTUS’ shoddy historical analysis into Hawaii law. Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern discussed the ruling on this week’s Slate Plus segment of Amicus; their conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Not too familiar with the US but didn’t Texas just recently just set a precedent that the supreme court can just be ignored. Doesn’t the legal system there work off of precedent so that’s a thing you can just do now?
I call it the you and what army precedent. Things will get interesting from here on out.