Hawaii has folded — again. In a stipulated final judgment and permanent injunction entered by U.S. District Judge Jill A. Otake in Johnathan Solinsky and Hawaii Rifle Association v. Anne E. Lopez, the State of Hawaii agreed that non-residents who are members — or who become members — of the Hawaii Rifle Association (HRA) may apply for a license to carry a concealed pistol or revolver. For years, Hawaii Revised Statutes § 134-9(a) required applicants to be state residents, a residency gate that plaintiffs challenged as unconstitutional under Bruen. Now, under a court-ordered injunction, Attorney General Anne E. Lopez is permanently barred from enforcing that residency requirement against Solinsky and all current and future HRA members. Attorney General Lopez’s office is also on the hook for attorneys’ fees.
”Mercy, Mercy, No More” — What Hawaii Agreed To
The stipulated judgment’s operative language is worth reading closely. The court ordered that the defendant — AG Lopez in her official capacity — along with her officers, agents, servants, and employees, is permanently enjoined from enforcing the challenged statute “to the extent that it prohibits non-residents of the state of Hawaii from obtaining a license to carry a pistol or revolver and ammunition concealed on the individual’s person on the basis of their residency.” That’s a complete capitulation on the residency question. No trial. No adverse ruling at the appellate level. Hawaii looked at the Bruen landscape and decided it was not worth fighting.
This is what I call a “mercy, mercy, no more” moment. The state of Hawaii — one of the most anti-gun jurisdictions in the country — read the Bruen tea leaves and concluded that defending an across-the-board residency bar on concealed carry was a losing proposition. So it settled. And that settlement is now a permanent court order.
Attorneys Alan Beck and Kevin O’Grady deserve enormous credit here. This is not Beck’s first rodeo in Hawaii federal court. He is also the attorney who argued Wolford v. Lopez before the United States Supreme Court in January 2026 — the case challenging Hawaii’s so-called “vampire rule” on carrying in private spaces open to the public. That SCOTUS decision is still pending. Beck is building a systematic docket of Hawaii Second Amendment cases, and Solinsky is the latest win in that campaign.
Why the Relief Is Limited to HRA Members — and Why That Is Still a Big Deal
Hawaii News Now headlined the story “Hawaii Rifle Association may see windfall from new concealed carry rule,” and that framing is accurate — but for reasons that require a bit of constitutional explanation.
Under Article III of the U.S. Constitution, federal courts only have jurisdiction over actual “cases or controversies” between specific parties. A federal judge cannot simply issue a ruling that rewrites state policy for everyone in America. That court can only adjudicate the rights of the parties standing before it. As Alan Beck explained to Hawaii News Now: “Trial courts can only issue injunctions for the parties that are before them. And so what that means is that a court may rule in your favor, but it is going to only rule for you and not for the general public.”
That Article III constraint was reinforced hard by the Supreme Court’s 2025 decision in Trump v. CASA, Inc., 606 U.S. 831 (2025), authored by Justice Amy Coney Barrett in a 6–3 decision. CASA reined in so-called “universal injunctions” — those sweeping nationwide orders that anti-Trump district judges were issuing to freeze federal executive action wholesale. Justice Barrett’s majority held that federal courts may not issue relief broader than necessary to provide complete relief to the formal plaintiffs. As Beck noted in the Hawaii News Now article: “The Trump versus Casa ruling certainly has percolated down to the trial courts in a way that has made it more difficult to vindicate civil rights in general.”
Here is the practical upshot: if you are not Johnathan Solinsky and you are not an HRA member, this injunction does not run to you automatically. But here is what Beck and O’Grady built into the stipulated judgment that makes this far more than a two-plaintiff win. The injunction expressly covers “plaintiff Hawaii Rifle Association’s members” — and the HRA’s membership is open. The “future member” language is the key. Anyone who joins the HRA becomes a plaintiff-class beneficiary and can apply for a non-resident CCW in Hawaii. Current membership sits at roughly 900. That number is likely to grow.
Organizational Standing: A Doctrine That Runs to the Founding
Some people will ask why HRA membership is even a relevant legal concept here. The answer is organizational standing — a doctrine with deep roots in American law. Organizations like the NAACP, the NRA, and the HRA can litigate on behalf of their members. When the organization wins, its members share in that relief. The Supreme Court has recognized this for decades. Beck and O’Grady threaded the CASA needle by ensuring that HRA organizational standing made the win as broad as Article III permits.
My read is that this is the correct and creative lawyering. Post-CASA, you cannot get a universal injunction. But organizational standing lets you approximate one — so long as your organization has an open-enrollment structure, which the HRA does. Want the benefit of the Solinsky judgment? Join the HRA. That is the price of admission, and it is a straightforward transaction.
Hawaii’s Crumbling Wall and What Comes Next
The bigger picture here is that Hawaii’s once-impenetrable wall against carry rights is now crumbling, brick by brick. The state already lost on the core carry question under Bruen. It is now defending Wolford at the Supreme Court. And it just capitulated on the non-resident CCW question in Solinsky rather than litigate. The direction of travel is unmistakable.
I expect this pressure to continue. The combination of Bruen, a Supreme Court that appeared sympathetic to gun owners at the Wolford oral argument, and a legal team in Beck and O’Grady that knows how to litigate Hawaii’s specific statutes is a formidable force. Hawaii became a state in the United States of America. The Bill of Rights applies there just as it applies anywhere else. These wins are proof that sustained, strategic litigation works — even in the bluest corners of the country.
Congratulations to Johnathan Solinsky and the Hawaii Rifle Association. And congratulations to Alan Beck and Kevin O’Grady for another well-earned victory.
This article is based on analysis by Professor Mark W. Smith, constitutional attorney and Host of the Four Boxes Diner 2nd Amendment channel. Watch the original video here. This does not constitute legal advice.