WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a Hawaii law that barred licensed gun owners from carrying handguns onto private property open to the public unless they first received the owner’s express permission, ruling 6-3 that the restriction violated the Second Amendment.

The decision in Wolford v. Lopez reversed a ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and sent the case back for further proceedings. Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the court’s conservative majority, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. Barrett also wrote a concurrence. Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.

The Hawaii law required people with concealed-carry permits to obtain “express authorization” before bringing a firearm into businesses and other private property open to the public. The court said the law flipped the traditional rule that people may enter property held open to the public unless the owner says otherwise.

“This regime hobbles what the Second Amendment protects,” Alito wrote, saying the law interfered with the right to carry firearms for self-defense during daily life.

Alito rejected Hawaii’s argument that its local customs and laws justified the rule, writing that the Second Amendment has the same meaning in every state. He said it cannot give way to “the spirit of Aloha” and added that local attitudes cannot change the meaning of rights applied to the states through the 14th Amendment.

The ruling does not prevent private property owners from banning firearms. The court said owners of establishments open to the public may still admit or exclude people carrying guns. But Hawaii cannot make exclusion the statewide default unless owners affirmatively opt in to allowing firearms, the majority said.

Hawaii officials had argued that the law protected property owners’ rights and balanced those rights against the right to carry firearms. Gun rights challengers, including three Maui County residents with concealed-carry permits and a Honolulu-based advocacy group, said the rule amounted to a broad restriction on lawful public carry.

In dissent, Jackson said the case was about property rights, not gun rights, and accused the majority of turning the court’s 2022 gun-rights decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen into a “free-for-all.” She said the ruling improperly limited lawmakers trying to protect both gun owners and property owners.

Kagan wrote separately that Hawaii’s law was consistent with historical regulations aimed at addressing harms caused by people carrying guns on other people’s land.

The decision is the court’s latest major Second Amendment ruling since Bruen, which held that people have a constitutional right to carry handguns outside the home for self-defense. The court did not take up separate parts of Hawaii’s law involving firearms at beaches, bars and other sensitive places

 A growing list of public employees punished for social media posts about the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk has begun winning settlements, reinstatements and legal victories, renewing a national debate over how far government employers can go when political speech causes outrage.

Maria Ruhtenberg, an attorney with the Iowa Office of the State Public Defender, was fired after private Facebook posts about Kirk drew one complaint and later a media inquiry. She appealed, got her job back and later settled a federal First Amendment retaliation lawsuit for $125,000.

She is not alone. NPR reported that other resolved cases include Melissa Crook, an Iowa high school teacher who settled for $145,000 and benefits; Suzanne Swierc, a Ball State University health educator who settled for $225,000; Brittney Brown, a Florida wildlife biologist who settled for $485,000; Darren Michael, an Austin Peay State University professor who was reinstated and received $500,000; and Larry Bushart, a retired Tennessee law enforcement officer who received $835,000 after being jailed for a Facebook post about Kirk.

Two more public university cases also ended in reversals. Phillip Michael Hook, a tenured art professor at the University of South Dakota, was reinstated after a court fight over a private Facebook post. At Clemson University, Dr. Joshua Bregy, an assistant professor, reached a settlement after the university agreed to rescind his termination and provide pay and benefits through the original term of his employment.

The cases followed a wave of punishment after Kirk was fatally shot Sept. 10, 2025. Reuters reported that more than 600 people were fired, suspended, investigated or otherwise disciplined over comments about his death, with educators among the most frequent targets.

The First Amendment does not protect every worker from every workplace consequence. Private employers generally have more room to discipline employees. But when the employer is the government, the Constitution limits retaliation against workers speaking as private citizens on matters of public concern.

That principle reaches back to the Supreme Court’s 1968 ruling in Pickering v. Board of Education, which held that a public school teacher could not be fired simply for writing a newspaper letter criticizing school officials. The court said public employees retain free-speech rights, though those rights must be balanced against the government’s need to operate efficiently.

Later rulings narrowed and shaped that test. In Connick v. Myers, the court said employee speech must involve a matter of public concern to receive constitutional protection. In Garcetti v. Ceballos, the court held that speech made as part of official job duties is not protected in the same way as speech made as a private citizen.

The Kirk-related cases also draw from broader free-speech precedent. In Tinker v. Des Moines, the court sided with students, including Mary Beth Tinker, who wore black armbands to protest the Vietnam War, ruling that students and teachers do not “shed” their rights at the schoolhouse gate. In Brandenburg v. Ohio, the court protected even inflammatory advocacy unless it is directed to inciting imminent lawless action and likely to produce it.

Other landmark winners include Gregory Lee Johnson, whose flag-burning protest was protected in Texas v. Johnson; Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church, whose offensive funeral protests were protected in Snyder v. Phelps; and Simon Tam, whose band name was protected from viewpoint discrimination in Matal v. Tam.

For Ruhtenberg, Brown, Crook, Swierc, Michael, Bushart, Hook and Bregy, the legal question was not whether their posts were tasteful. It was whether government officials could punish them for speech made outside their official duties about a major public event.

So far, the answer in several cases has been costly for public employers.

Brown, who now has another job working with birds, told NPR she wanted her case to send a message: “You can’t get away with stuff like this.”

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday limited the federal government’s power to ban marijuana users from owning firearms, ruling that prosecutors cannot automatically take away a person’s Second Amendment rights simply because that person uses marijuana.

In a unanimous decision, the justices sided with Ali Danial Hemani, a Texas man charged under a federal law that bars unlawful drug users from possessing firearms. The court said the government failed to show that Hemani’s marijuana use made him dangerous, addicted or intoxicated while armed.

The ruling places renewed attention on the plain words of the Second Amendment: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

For supporters of gun rights, the most important words are the final four: “shall not be infringed.” They argue that the Constitution does not say the right to keep and bear arms belongs only to citizens the government approves of. It says the right belongs to “the people,” and that right cannot be restricted without a strong constitutional reason.

Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the court, said the decision was narrow. The ruling does not protect people who are addicted to drugs, carrying firearms while intoxicated or proven to be dangerous. It also does not prevent Congress from passing firearm restrictions that are targeted and historically grounded.

Still, the decision is a major Second Amendment ruling because it rejects a blanket government ban based only on marijuana use. The court said the government cannot erase a constitutional right by placing a citizen into a broad category without proving that the person presents a real danger.

The case is especially important because marijuana laws have changed across the country. Many states allow medical or recreational marijuana use, while federal law still treats marijuana as illegal. That conflict has left many Americans uncertain whether marijuana use could cost them their gun rights.

The ruling sends a broader message beyond marijuana. Constitutional rights are not privileges handed out by the government. They are limits on government power. The phrase “shall not be infringed” means the government must meet a heavy burden before restricting the right of the people to keep and bear arms.

Supporters of the decision said it protects ordinary citizens from being disarmed by assumption. Critics warned that drug use and firearms can create public safety risks and said lawmakers may need to write clearer rules.

The Supreme Court’s decision does not end the national debate over guns, drugs or public safety. But it makes one point clear: The Second Amendment remains a constitutional command, and the government cannot ignore the words “shall not be infringed” when deciding who may keep and bear arms.