Via David Codrea, this summary at Reason.

The Government has failed to show that there is a reasonable fit between their stated objective of promoting public safety and the 10-day permit use period imposed by HRS § 134-2(e). The 10-day permit use period for handguns does not survive intermediate scrutiny….

[As to the 5-day inspection period requirement], the Government [again] wholly fails to demonstrate how the in-person inspection and registration requirement furthers these interests. It merely states that “ensuring that the registration information is accurate, ensuring that the firearm complies with Hawaii law, and confirming the identity of the firearm can be easily accomplished simply by bringing the firearm to the registration for inspection.”

This bald statement is not enough to meet the Government’s burden. “To survive intermediate scrutiny, the defendants must show ‘reasonable inferences based on substantial evidence’ that the statutes are substantially related to the governmental interest.” Here, the Government has provided no evidence whatsoever in support of its position. The Government has provided no legislative history speaking to the legislature’s reasons for amending the statute. It has not shown that inaccurate registration was a problem affecting public safety (or even a problem at all) prior to enactment of the 2020 in-person inspection and registration requirement, nor has it provided any studies, examples from other jurisdictions, or any other type of evidence suggesting that an in-person inspection and registration requirement would ameliorate such a problem.

In absence of concrete evidence, the only support that the Government offers is conjecture. Defendant asserts that in-person inspection and registration promotes public safety by requiring that the police directly inspect the serial number on the gun itself, rather than the number as reported by the buyer and (separately) by the seller on the permit. Specifically, the Government speculates that “[s]ome people might innocently make mistakes in transcribing serial numbers or other identifying information” or may be unaware that their gun’s identifying marks or other attributes have been impermissibly altered. And, the Government hypothesizes, individuals may not be aware of these errors or inconsistencies until they bring their firearm to the police station to have it physically inspected. But this hypothetical falls short under intermediate scrutiny. To meet its burden, the Government must “present some meaningful evidence, not mere assertions, to justify its predictive judgments.”

Thus, it once again appears that the Government’s only permissible argument is that common sense shows the law is reasonably related to its interest in promoting public safety. But the notion that in-person inspection and registration promotes public safety is not a matter of common sense. First, as stated above, in the absence of any evidence to that end, it is not a common-sense conclusion that mistakes in registration were a problem prior to enactment of the  in-person inspection and registration requirement. Indeed, there is redundancy built into the registration process even without the in-person requirement—both the firearm seller and buyer must provide the serial number and other identifying information about the firearm. As Plaintiffs point out, “it strains credulity that both a firearms store and a buyer would both fail to properly transcribe numbers or realize” that the gun has been impermissibly altered.

Second, as the D.C. Circuit pointed out in Heller v. District of Columbia (D.C. Cir. 2015), requiring individuals to bring firearms into the police station for in-person inspection and registration may “more likely be a threat to public safety [because] there is a risk that the gun may be stolen en route or that the would-be registrant may be arrested or even shot by a police officer seeing a ‘man with a gun.'” While these possibilities—like the Government’s hypothetical about mistaken transcription—are no more than conjecture, they demonstrate that it is not a simple matter of common sense that in-person inspection and registration promotes public safety.

Finally, it is again worth noting that Hawaii is the only state in the country to require in-person inspection and registration of firearms. As in the case of the 10-day permit use period, if it were truly a matter of common sense that in-person inspection and registration promoted public safety—or that misidentification in the absence of in-person inspection and registration was a problem—one would expect additional states to maintain similar requirements. The Government has failed to show that the in-person inspection and registration requirement is reasonably tailored to a significant, substantial, or important government interest. HRS § 134-3(c)’s in-person inspection and registration requirement does not survive intermediate scrutiny.

Reason ends with this: “Congratulations to Alan Beck and Stephen D. Stamboulieh, who represented the challengers.”

Stephen Stamboulieh is a friend of TCJ and I would like to say congratulations.  I’ve held for a long time now that the fertile soil for gun rights – and recognition of all God-given rights for that matter – is local and state.  The rapid expansion of open and constitutional carry across America has demonstrated this axiom right.