The Ninth Circuit Just Upheld Hawaii’s 30-Day Pistol Clock and Police Inspection

The en banc court filed the opinion September 22, 2026: Yukutake v. Lopez, No. 21-16756, from D. Hawaii 1:19-cv-00578-JMS-RT. Plaintiffs: Todd Yukutake and David Kikukawa. Defendant: Attorney General Anne E. Lopez. City and County of Honolulu is on the caption as a defendant. The panel: Chief Judge Mary H. Murguia and Judges Wardlaw, Nguyen, Owens, R. Nelson, Bade, Bress, Forrest, VanDyke, Sanchez, and Thomas. Opinion by Owens. The staff summary, which the court says is not part of the opinion, states the holding: the en banc court “reversed the district court’s injunction that blocked the implementation of the State of Hawaii’s firearm licensing regime” and remanded.

The statutes are specific. Haw. Rev. Stat. § 134-2(e): a permit to acquire a pistol or revolver “shall be void unless used within thirty days after the date of issue.” Miss the window and the buyer restarts. § 134-3 requires a registration form and, in the circumstances the statute names, bringing the firearm to a police station. The prior versions were tighter: a ten-day permit window, and in-person inspection of virtually every gun acquired under § 134-2. Hawaii later stretched the clock to 30 days, effective January 2024, and narrowed inspection to firearms brought into Hawaii from another jurisdiction. District Judge J. Michael Seabright had granted the plaintiffs summary judgment and permanently enjoined the challenged pieces. The en banc majority treated Bruen footnote 9 as a carve-out: non-abusive shall-issue rules are “presumptively constitutional,” and Yukutake and Kikukawa “failed to show” the two provisions “have been put toward abusive ends that would effectively deny ordinary citizens their Second Amendment rights.” At most, Owens wrote, “modest, procedural burdens.”

Judge Ryan D. Nelson dissented, joined by Judges Bress and VanDyke, and joined except as to Part I–C by Judges Bade and Forrest. Nelson: Footnote 9 “did not create a gaping Second Amendment exemption.” “Never has a single footnote in a Supreme Court opinion been so misread by so many lower courts to deny so many Americans their constitutional rights.” The 30-day rule, he wrote, voids permits held by buyers; the inspection rule has no analogue in other states. Judge Lawrence VanDyke joined that dissent and wrote his own. He quoted the court’s old “undefeated, 50–0 record” against Second Amendment challengers before Bruen, then said the circuit had managed to become “less sympathetic” after Bruen, Hemani, and Wolford. “Frankly, our court’s scorched-earth approach to the Second Amendment is getting exhausting.” He expects a red flag on Westlaw. This is a reversal. It is not a Supreme Court grant. The plaintiffs can still seek cert.