In a jaw-dropping moment at the Supreme Court, liberal lawyers invoked the racist Black Codes to justify stripping Americans of their fundamental right to self-defense. They argued that post–Civil War laws designed to disarm freedmen establish a “tradition” of gun restrictions we must uphold today. It was a breathtaking assault on both history and liberty.
The case, Wolford v. Lopez, targets Hawaii’s notorious “vampire rule,” which bars law-abiding citizens from carrying a firearm on privately owned spaces open to the public—hotels, beaches and parks—unless a property owner says so. It’s a radical departure from our nation’s founding guarantee that “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
When Solicitor General Neal Katyal defended Hawaii, he shockingly held up the Black Codes as evidence that disarming Americans has deep roots in our legal tradition. He insisted parts of those segregationist statutes were “race-neutral.” That contention drew immediate scorn from the Court’s conservative majority.
Justice Neil Gorsuch cut to the chase: “How do we treat these shameful laws as support for gun control without defying common sense?” His pointed questioning exposed Katyal’s argument as a cynical fabrication.
Justice Samuel Alito was even more forceful. He reminded the courtroom that the Black Codes were meant to disarm Black citizens so the Ku Klux Klan could terrorize them unopposed. “Isn’t it the height of irony,” Alito thundered, “to cite laws created for racist oppression as a model for modern firearm bans?”
Justice Clarence Thomas added constitutional context: the 14th Amendment was ratified precisely to nullify those Black Codes and protect the rights of freed slaves. Any judiciary that leans on those laws to restrict gun rights betrays the very purpose of Reconstruction.
On procedural ground, Justice Brett Kavanaugh declared the case “pretty simple” in light of the Court’s recent Bruen decision. The Second Amendment requires a historical analogue for any gun regulation—and there is none here.
Chief Justice John Roberts underscored everyday presumptions of free movement and assembly. He posed a simple scenario: Would any homeowner or gas station operator need to post a sign to prevent leafleting or keep dangerous weapons off their premises? Of course not. The burden lies on the state to justify a blanket firearm ban.
Even liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson could only defend the Black Codes argument by pointing to the Court’s own history-and-tradition test. But her rationale rang hollow against the reality that these were explicitly racist statutes, declared unconstitutional long ago.
By late June, the high court will issue a ruling that could reshape gun rights for all Americans. If justices uphold the “vampire rule,” they will sanction a dangerous precedent: any state may now disarm its citizens by hiding behind property-owner consent. That’s tyranny dressed in legalese.
Conversely, striking down Hawaii’s law will reaffirm the Second Amendment’s place at the heart of our freedom. It will rebuke the 9th Circuit’s activist overreach and restore the clear rule: government cannot ban arms where our Constitution plainly guarantees them.
The Supreme Court stands at a crossroads. It must reject this brazen attack on self-defense and declare once more that Americans do not shed their rights at the state line—or at the entrance to a hotel lobby. The time for certainty is now.
