Two Supreme Court 2A Opinions Coming Soon

 

Two Second Amendment cases have been heard by the Supreme Court this last year. The opinions of the Supreme Court in those two cases are expected to be announced before the end of June, 2026. The two cases are the Wolford case, out of Hawaii in the Ninth Circuit, and the Hemani Case out of Texas in the Fifth Circuit.

Wolford is essentially a question of whether a state can define "sensitive" locations so broadly as to prevent people from being armed in most public places.  Specifically Wolford asks if Hawaii has the authority to command property owners to actively choose to allow private carry on their property or the State will ban private carry on their property.  The Hemani case is a fairly straightforward question: Can the government strip people of their Second Amendment rights if they are users of a substance (marijuana) which the government has deemed to be illegal, even if they are not carrying arms while impaired?

Both cases carry the potential for further clarification of the standard set forth in the Bruen decision on how courts are to decide Second Amendment issues. The Bruen decision was straightforward. If the case involved an infringement of Second Amendment rights, as provided by the text of the Second Amendment, the burden of showing such limitations was on the government. The government had to show there was a longstanding tradition of such limitations going back to the time period of the ratification of the Bill of Rights. To a lesser extent, some clarification might be drawn from statutes passed about the time of the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment. Any legislative activity beyond about 1875, at latest, was considered irrelevant. If the government could show a longstanding tradition, then it was shown such a limitation was considered understood as part of the right to keep and bear arms at the time of the ratification of the Bill of Rights.

In the Rahimi decision, the Supreme Court appeared to loosen the restrictions a bit. The decision allowed laws from the time of the ratification, which had a loose connection to the statute in question, to meet the Bruen test if the essential intent were the same. Both Wolford and Hemani present cases to the Supreme Court which could be used to narrow or broaden how lower courts interpret Bruen as seen through the lens of Rahimi.

The Supreme Court only hears about 70 cases in one year. Thousands of cases apply to be heard by the Court. In addition to the 70 or so cases heard on the merits, the Supreme Court has been burdened by numerous lawsuits against the Trump administration. These cases have taken much time of the Court as they react to frivolous challenges to Trump administrative decisions. The Supreme Court has issued at least 35 emergency orders as related to Trump administrative actions.  The more "emergency" actions, the less time to spend on cases on the merits.  The vast majority of these cases have been decided in the favor of the Trump administration.

Both the Wolford and Hemani decisions will be released by the end of June of 2026.

 

 ©2026 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

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