SCOTUS Strikes Down Hawaii Law Restricting CCW

Given all the other crazy laws in Hawaii, I'm not sure how much of a difference this is going to make in practice. Still... US Supreme Court strikes down Hawaii gun law as unconstitutional

The US Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a Hawaii law that bans the carrying of firearms on private property open to the public such as stores or restaurants without the owner's permission.

The conservative-dominated court, in a 6-3 decision, ruled that the state law was a violation of the Second Amendment of the Constitution, which says Americans have the right to keep and bear arms.

As I understand it, and I am no lawyer, you had to get permission from the owner of a business before (prior to arriving) you could conceal and carry on the premises in question.

Justice Samuel Alito, in an opinion joined by the five other conservative justices, said the Hawaii law imposes "severe restrictions" on residents who have been granted concealed carry permits.

You can read any number of articles for an overview, or you can find the decision on the Supreme Court's website.

Company Serving Hawaii Will No Longer Ship Electric Vehicles

While this mostly concerns Hawaii, it will probably become more of an issue over time. Electric vehicles will be harder to access in Hawaii

Effective today [July 14th], Matson won’t take a booking to ship electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles. They say it’s “due to increasing concern for the safety of transporting vehicles powered by large lithium-ion batteries.”

This is from a carrier that moves about 30,000 vehicles to and from Hawaiʻi every year, a growing number of EVs and hybrids.

This comes after the vessel Morning Midas sank at the end of June, after having a fire break out on its electric vehicle deck about 3 weeks earlier.

There are still ways to get electric vehicles to and from Hawaii, but if other shippers decide the risks are too high, Hawaii may be in a pinch if they have followed California's lead and mandated all electric vehicles. Or they will have to buy Chinese vehicles, though it isn't clear to me if those vehicles meet US safety standards for crash worthiness.

The hat tip goes to MGUY Australia and his video EV Quickie: ANOTHER shipping company BANS electric vehicles. The video is 3 minutes, but really just covers the info in the article linked above.

Kilauea Eruption on 11 February

Nature is amazing. Awesome is an appropriate word in this case.

This is Episode 9 of the episodic eruption in Halema'uma'u crater. Halema'uma'u is a crater inside the main crater of the Kilauea volcano. The current eruption began 23 December 2024.

The video mentions vog. Vog is volcanic smog, or a hazy air pollution caused by the eruptions. It is primarily water vapor (H₂O), carbon dioxide (CO₂), and sulfur dioxide (SO₂) gas. Vog can also contain fine particles. It can be both irritating and cause health problems.

The video also mentions tilt as measured in radians, or more precisely, in microradians. 2π radians are equal to 360 degrees. I have no idea if you studied radians in school; it probably depends on your age, and what you studied, but polar coordinates are more useful than Cartesian coordinates for most things in science.

Kilauea Volcano Eruption Update: Episode 9 (February 11, 2025)

Here is an NBC news article on the eruption. Kilauea is shooting lava again. It is the Hawaii volcano's latest activity in an on-and-off eruption.

Kilauea, one of the world's most active volcanoes, has been erupting on and off for nearly two months since it burst to life on Dec. 23. The eruption has been taking place at the the volcano's summit crater inside Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. No residential areas have been threatened by lava.

The latest release of molten rock began 10:16 a.m. with lava flowing on to the floor of Halemaumau Crater. A half-hour later, a vent shot lava about 330 feet high.

330 feet is 100 meters. I really wish Americans would get on board with the metric system.

Self-Defense Is Legal in Hawaii

And when cops ignore a bad situation, it gets worse. Charges dropped for man who fatally shot suspect in deadly Waianae dispute | KITV

You could file this under, "Don't bring a front end loader to a gunfight."

Waianae, Hawaii is about a 40 minute drive north and west of Honolulu, on the western shore of Oahu.

The charges are being dropped following the deadly neighborhood dispute in West Oahu because they said he did it out of self-defense. The man fatally shot his neighbor Hiram Silva on Aug. 31 after Silva plowed through the home with a front loader.

He had threatened to kill them since 2021, so they went and purchased firearms. I don't think that is particularly easy to do in Hawaii.

"This man's threatened to kill these people in 2021," said Keamo-Carnate's attorney, Michael Green. "They went out and got registered firearms after he threatened to kill everybody, to protect themselves. He was running all kinds of illegal things on his property he was ignored by the city."

The video of the front end loader crashing into the home is astonishing. Click thru; it's only a couple of minutes.

So why were the police not interested?

14 Defensive Gun Uses

And a swipe at the insanity of Hawaii's court. 14 Defensive Gun Uses That Show Armed Citizens Matter

Hawaii’s high court last week thumbed its nose at the U.S. Supreme Court’s Second Amendment jurisprudence, declaring that the right to bear arms in public clashes with the “Aloha spirit” and therefore doesn’t really apply in that state.

That’s right. The Hawaii Supreme Court believes it can water down and reinterpret the federal Bill of Rights, because—well— “vibes.”

Click thru for more BS and those 14 examples of self-defense.

People Need to Learn to Accept that Relationships Sometimes End

First, from before Christmas a story from Tennessee. Fight turns into deadly shooting when couple returns home to find woman’s ex, cops say

A woman and her boyfriend, identified as Monger, arrived at her residence in Memphis shortly before 7 p.m. on Dec. 14 to find her ex there with their child, Memphis police said in an arrest affidavit.

A physical altercation resulted in the boyfriend being shot multiple times. The ex is now charged with murder.

Next a story from Mississippi. Man shoots estranged wife’s boyfriend in Christmas home invasion, Mississippi cops say

A man was arrested after Mississippi police said he broke into his estranged wife’s home and shot her boyfriend twice.

The home invasion happened shortly before 9 p.m. on Christmas.

In this case the guy who got shot was only injured, and is in stable condition. The guy doing the shooting, since they know who he is, was arrested. He was charged with several things including assault.

And a story from Hawaii that proves if you need a restraining order, then you need a plan for your personal safety. Influencer shot dead by husband two days after getting restraining order

An Instagram influencer in Hawaii was shot to death by her husband just two days after obtaining a restraining order against him, authorities say.

Theresa Cachuela, 33, was gunned down inside a parking garage near Pearlridge Center in Honolulu on Friday morning in front of her 11-year-old daughter, according to family members.

The husband denied the abuse, of course, but he shot her, and then killed himself.

I would say that she needed a gun, and a concealed carry permit, but Hawaii doesn't approve of the 2nd Amendment. The dead woman's mother says that the justice system failed her daughter, but I believe that is because she expects the police to protect you. They won't. In most cases they can't, and they have no duty to do so.

So Was the Lack Of Response to Wild Fires Planned?

Because they want to get all of you middle class, riffraff off the island? How Convenient: Hawaii Governor Reveals State Plans “to Acquire Land” Ravaged by Wildfires (VIDEO)

On Monday, Hawaii’s Democrat Governor Josh Green announced that his administration is actively considering acquiring properties in Lahaina that have been devastated by recent wildfires.

A total of 99 deaths were recorded as a result of the wildfires that occurred in Maui. Concerns have been raised among officials regarding the potential increase in the death toll, as just 25% of the burn area has been searched thus far.

Local residents are grappling with not only the loss of homes and loved ones but the unsettling attention of developers looking to capitalize on their tragedy.

Because never let a tragedy go to waste.

Native Hawaiians Guilty of Anti-white Hate Crime

Haters gonna hate. Native Hawaiian men found guilty of hate crime against a white man in Maui | Daily Mail Online

Two native Hawaiian men have been found guilty of a hate crime after a white man was beaten with a shovel while renovating his new home in a remote Maui neighborhood.

Kaulana Alo-Kaonohi and Levi Aki Jr were detained Thursday pending sentencing on March 2 over the sickening 2014 assault in which they told the victim he 'had the wrong color skin.' 

State and local authorities wouldn't pursue hate crime charges, but the federal government decided to bring charges in 2020.

Kunzelman released surveillance footage of the 2014 attack which showed the men yelling at him and saying that the incident 'wasn't personal' but he had the 'wrong color skin'

I'm sure the Left is already screeching about how whites can't be the victims of racism.

Cops and Politicians versus Gun Rights

On the liberty front, Hawaii manages to be even more screwed up than California. You May Soon See People Openly Carrying Guns In Hawaii - Honolulu Civil Beat

Hawaii has been a "May Issue" state on the subject of concealed carry. And since cops have discretion, they see no reason to let the Little People be armed. "It's for their own good!"

“There’s been almost zero carry permits issued for civilians in the past 20 years,” [Todd Yukutake, director of the Hawaii Firearms Coalition] said.

But with the recent SCOTUS ruling, they know that will change, and they are not happy. (I'm shocked to discover that police don't want to give up their tyrannical power over the citizens.)

Michelle Yu, a spokeswoman for the Honolulu Police Department, says HPD is currently reviewing the ruling and talking with the city attorney and other county police departments about what to do. “The HPD’s firearms permitting procedures are unchanged at this time but are being evaluated in light of the ruling,” she said.

The folks of Hawaii don't even have to wait for a suit to be brought, one is already through the 9th Circuit. (They sided with the gun-controllers - are we shocked?)

Known as a grant, vacate and remand, or GVR, order, the two-sentence statement issued on Thursday struck down a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit that had supported Hawaii laws that had been used to generally deny people the right to carry guns outside the home, with few exceptions.

The high court essentially told the San Francisco-based appellate court: See what the Supreme Court just said in a similar case, New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen, and get it right this time.

So Hawaii may soon have both open carry and concealed carry, but probably at least concealed carry.

New York, and Hawaii, and California, and whatever other states are wrining their hands over the recent SCOTUS ruling should take a breath and realize that what SCOTUS said was that they basically need to adopt a law similar to what Ohio had in January of this year, and for the past 10 or 12 years, at least. (Ohio has another law as of the middle of June, but that is another story.) And not just Ohio, but most of the states. Well, about half the states now have Constitutional Carry, but New York, Hawaii, et al would faint dead away if that is what SCOTUS mandated. It wasn't.

Hawaii Is Usually Very Anti-2nd-Amendment

Couple that with how prosecutors HATE self-defense, and this story is very unusual. No Charges in Fatal Road Rage Incident

Prosecutor Steve Alm says the driver who was stabbed was the unprovoked aggressor and that there’s not enough evidence to disprove the other driver acted in self-defense. A spokesperson for the prosecutor says Gerald Waialae appeared to be intoxicated and intentionally rammed the car of the man who later stabbed him.

If someone "intentionally rams" my car, I am going to assume - even in absence of intoxication - that he means to do me harm.

Apparently the prosecutor saw things that way as well.

Self-defense is a human-right. Though I would not count on it being recognized as your legal right in Hawaii. (Hat tip Keep and Bear Arms.)

Systems Design and Rail - Ne'er the Twain Shall Meet?

Publicly-funded Rail seems to be a way to spend money and never get anything done. Honolulu's rail project plagued with wheels too thin and tracks too wide.

No one does proper systems design, anymore.

Or how can you buy rail cars that won't run on the tracks you specified?

The costs went from $5 billion to more than $12 billion, and the schedule has slipped 11 years.

The trains built for Honolulu's troubled rail project have wheels that are too narrow for the track, and solving the problem will lead to more issues or more delays.

Replacing the wheels will add too much weight to the trains. Replacing the tracks would push the timeline back a year.

The problem is at frogs and switches. (click thru for an image of a frog in this context.)

How the hell do you specify train cars without respect to the tracks, or tracks without respect to the cars? They both have to work together.

Oh, and there are other problems with the switches. Bad welding, cracks caused by sandblasting. It seems you don't get much for $12 billion today.

Hat tip The Antiplanner and Honolulu Rail Disaster Gets More Disastrous, in which it is noted...

The saddest thing is that no one in the transit industry seems to be capable of learning from experiences like this. Instead, people like the CEOs of Los Angeles and San Jose’s transit agencies, who have overseen new rail construction leading to transit ridership declines, get rewarded for wasting taxpayers’ money by being given cushy jobs in the Biden administration.