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Guns

Guns, Property Rights, and the Second Amendment

The government cannot force private property owners to allow guns on their land. But the Supreme Court rightly ruled today that it also cannot impose a presumption of exclusion.

Ilya Somin | 6.25.2026 5:17 PM

Kbiros | Dreamstime.com

I am one of the few people who believe the Supreme Court was very right in its Second Amendment ruling today, in Wolford v. Lopez, but badly wrong in its ruling allowing abolition of TPS status for Haitian migrants in Mullin v. Doe. Both majority opinions were written by Justice Alito; but he did a way better job in one than in the other. In this post, I assess Wolford. I will try to cover Mullin v. Doe later.

In Wolford, the Court struck down a Hawaii law that barred people carrying guns from entering private property "held open to the public" unless they had specific permission from the owner. In a 6-3 decision divided along ideological lines, the Court held the law violates the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. The conclusion is right.

Elsewhere, I have argued that red-state laws requiring property owners to allow guns on their land violate the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment (see here and here). Private property owners have every right to exclude people who carry guns from their property, just as they also have a right to exclude people for any number of other reasons. But the Hawaii law goes far beyond merely allowing property owners to exclude bearers of guns. It singles out the exercise of a constitutional right for a legal presumption of exclusion. And here I would emphasize that the Second Amendment protects not only the right to own arms, but also the right to "bear" them. Such bearing is often useful for........

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