“Confirmed Judges, Confirmed Fears” is a blog series documenting the harmful impact of President Trump’s judges on Americans’ rights and liberties. It includes judges nominated in both his first and second terms.
Trump judge Daniel Collins, joined by Trump judge Kenneth Lee, affirmed a lower court decision and ruled a Hawaii gun safety law unconstitutional. Judge Carlos Bea, nominated by President George W Bush, strongly dissented in the March 2025 ruling in Yukutake v Lopez.
What happened in this case?
Two Hawaii residents filed a lawsuit seeking to declare a state gun safety law unconstitutional and unenforceable under the Second Amendment. A federal district court agreed and granted summary judgment against Hawaii with respect to two aspects of its law. First, the court ruled that it violated the Second Amendment to set a strict time limit of ten days (later changed to 30 days) from the time that an applicant gets a background check and permit for a gun until the gun is purchased. In addition, the court ruled that it was illegal for the state to mandate that a gun owner bring a newly acquired gun to a police station for in-person inspection within five days.
State officials appealed to the Ninth Circuit.
Why was the decision by Judges Collins and Lee harmful?
Judge Collins wrote a 2-1 decision, in which Judge Lee mostly concurred, which affirmed the decision striking down the gun safety law. Collins maintained that the statute on its face infringed on the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, and that under the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision, the state had the burden to show that the regulation is consistent with the nation’s “historical tradition” of firearms regulation. Collins and Lee ruled that the state had not met this burden, with Collins noting that the 30 day time limit was “abusive” in light of Bruen.
Judge Bea strongly dissented. He explained that both “text and precedent” make clear that the Second Amendment does not make illegal “facially neutral ancillary regulations” concerning guns like those in Hawaii. The majority was wrong to rule, he explained, that “any government regulation” concerning firearms, “no matter how small,” is “presumptively invalid” unless the government can carry a “steep burden” of proving otherwise. On the contrary, he went on, precedent demonstrates that someone who challenges an ancillary firearm rule must show that it actually interferes with the right to keep and bear arms. Bea explained that the majority’s decision , however, would impose a “regime of tight supervision over state gun laws” in which the federal courts are “required to police the minutiae of every state firearm licensing system,” a “disruptive result” which the Second Amendment cannot justify.
The opinion by Trump judges Collins and Lee clearly harms the efforts of Hawaii to enforce reasonable regulations on gun safety. It may similarly harm other state gun safety laws, particularly in the Ninth Circuit, which includes California, Hawaii, Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington. In addition, the decision illustrates the importance of our federal courts to health, welfare and justice and the significance of having fair-minded judges on the federal bench.