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.
If it were so simple, there would be no reason to preface the statement with the clause about a well-regulated militia. No other amendment includes functionless explanatory language. Every amendment was looked over and debated with considerable care, and the language used was deliberately chosen with purpose. The clause was included for a reason, and was not removed for a reason.
No good-faith reading of the language can conclude that the drafters would have phrased it that way if they did not intend for “a well-regulated militia” to be functionally relevant to the interpretation. If they had intended the amendment to mean, simply, “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” then that would have comprised the entirety of the text. Legal language is hard sometimes, but not that hard if you try.