One problem harming the U.S. in recent years is the prevalence of activism and progressive politics in the judicial system, which has led to anything but justice.
We have seen this in recent years as district attorneys refuse to prosecute criminals and judges ignore the law to reflect their personal views. In this situation, it is nearly always the result of far-left attorneys and judges.
A recent example from the Hawaii Supreme Court shows the judges will willingly ignore the law in favor of “The Spirit of Aloha.”
In this case, an individual was charged with carrying a gun unregistered in the state, which he argued infringed on his Second Amendment rights. His attorney cited U.S. Supreme Court rulings as support.
The case was a Second Amendment case where the court found no state constitutional right to carry a firearm.
“Conventional interpretive modalities and Hawaiʻi’s historical tradition of firearm regulation rule out an individual right to keep and bear arms under the Hawaiʻi Constitution,” the court found. “In Hawaiʻi, there is no state constitutional right to carry a firearm in public.”
So, the court said ignore the U.S. Constitution and the law because tradition says something different. The court went even further to show support for its position, quoting the TV series The Wire, writing, “The thing about the old days, they the old days.”
However, this ignores the more recent rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court – New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, McDonald v. City of Chicago and District of Columbia v. Heller – that affirmed the Second Amendment. A lower court recognized the prevalence of precedent cases supporting the defendant’s position and dismissed the charge. The state appealed to the state supreme court.
The court wrote, “As the world turns, it makes no sense for contemporary society to pledge allegiance to the founding era’s culture, realities, laws, and understanding of the Constitution.”
The court contradicts itself in the same ruling, though. After saying that something old shouldn’t hold sway today, it wrote, “The spirit of Aloha clashes with a federally-mandated lifestyle that lets citizens walk around with deadly weapons during day-to-day activities. The history of the Hawaiian Islands does not include a society where armed people move about the community to possibly combat the deadly aims of others.”
So, aligning with the history of the islands is good, but aligning with the founding legal document of the country is not, according the court.
The beauty of the U.S. Constitution is that it has within it the method to keep it relevant to the changes that occur in society. It is not easy, and this was done on purpose to ensure that changes aren’t being made on a whim and are the desire of a supermajority of the country.
Carrie Severino, president of the conservative legal advocacy group JCN, told the Daily Caller News Foundation, “The state supreme court justices are as unpersuasive on history as they are in their attempt to distinguish the Wilson case from Bruen in order to escape a ruling that, whether they like it or not, is binding on them.”
What this case comes down to is that the liberal judges support gun control, although the law does not so they reached and stretched themselves into legal knots to try and find support for their position.
Luckily, this case will undoubtedly wind up at the U.S. Supreme Court, which has shown most likely where it will fall. And even if the U.S. Supreme Court upholds this ruling, it won’t be because it follows the spirit of Aloha and that the U.S. Constitution doesn’t need to be followed because it’s more than two centuries old.
Michael A. Letts is the CEO and Founder of In-VestUSA, a national grassroots non-profit organization helping hundreds of communities provide thousands of bulletproof vests for their police forces through educational, public relations, sponsorship, and fundraising programs.
