The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to take up a challenge to Hawaii’s near-total ban on possessing or carrying firearms on much private property, setting the stage for a high-stakes constitutional fight over the scope of the Second Amendment. The case asks whether states may continue to impose sweeping limits on where guns may be kept or carried in private spaces — a question that follows the court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which reoriented courts toward an historical-tradition test for evaluating gun restrictions.

Hawaii’s statute, enacted and enforced for decades, bars people from possessing a firearm on private property that is not their residence or otherwise open to the public unless they have the owner’s express permission or qualify under narrow statutory exceptions. Challengers — a coalition of private plaintiffs and gun-rights groups — argue the law leaves law-abiding residents unable to defend themselves and conflicts with the Bruen standard that places primary weight on historical analogues to modern regulations.

In Bruen, the court wrote that when the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, “the government must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” That formulation has prompted lower courts across the country to remap litigation and has produced a patchwork of rulings on state and municipal restrictions.

Hawaii officials said the state would vigorously defend the law as a reasonable exercise of police power designed to protect public safety in a state that has long maintained stringent gun rules. A spokeswoman for the Hawaii attorney general’s office emphasized that the statute is part of a broader regulatory regime that includes licensing and storage rules. Advocates for the plaintiffs counter that the law is an outlier that runs afoul of an individual’s right to possess firearms for self-defense beyond the home.

Legal experts say the Supreme Court’s decision in the case could be decisive. A broad ruling in favor of the challengers would constrain the ability of states to designate private areas as gun-free, potentially invalidating a range of local prohibitions and prompting new litigation. Conversely, an opinion upholding Hawaii’s ban would preserve a measure of state flexibility and could blunt some post-Bruen challenges.

The stakes extend beyond constitutional theory. Hawaii consistently records among the nation’s lowest rates of gun deaths, a fact officials cite in defending strict regulation as culturally and geographically specific. But a ruling in favor of challengers could produce immediate policy shifts in mainland states with higher levels of gun violence, where lawmakers have relied on location-based restrictions to reduce risk in densely populated spaces.

International observers often watch Supreme Court gun decisions for their broader implications. Scholars and policymakers in countries with strict weapons controls view U.S. jurisprudence as shaping transnational debates about individual rights, federalism and public safety. A decision that narrows the scope for state regulation would underline how U.S. constitutional doctrine can produce effects far beyond its borders.

The court’s timetable is not yet set, but arguments are likely next term with a decision by June. Whatever the outcome, the case will mark the next major waypoint in a bruising national legal and political contest over firearms that touches on local practice, historical interpretation, and the balance between individual liberty and collective security.