Supreme Court bars 'vampire rules' on gun ownership

Supreme Court bars 'vampire rules' on gun ownership

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that states cannot require gun owners to get permission from property owners before bringing guns onto their land. In a 6-3 ideologically divided decision, the high court said that requiring permission in advance is an undue burden on the right to possess and carry a firearm.

In most states, gun owners can bring firearms onto private property, unless the property owner tells them otherwise. But five states - Hawaii, California, Maryland, New York, and New Jersey - have passed laws that require gun owners to get permission in advance.

These regulations are sometimes called "vampire laws," so named from Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, Dracula, where the Count "may not enter anywhere at the first, unless there be some one of the household who bid him to come."

Justice Samuel Alito, writing for a conservative supermajority, drove a stake through the laws by deciding that they "hobble[s] what the Second Amendment protects: the right of Americans to carry arms for self-defense as they go about their daily lives."

Historical arguments were front-and-center. "At the time of the founding," supporters of the law argued in their brief, "numerous state laws prohibited entry onto private property without the owner's express consent." The law's opponents countered that most people do not care enough to put up signs authorizing firearm possession on their property, so the vast majority of public places would become hostile to gun owners.