Hawaii Sued Over Permitting Delays

What state is the most hostile to our Second Amendment rights? There are several states in the running, but I might have to give the nod to Hawaii. In his latest legal filing, attorney Alan Beck notes that Hawaii County alone has settled seven lawsuits that challenge various gun control laws since the Bruen decision came down 3 1/2 years ago. 

Number eight may be on the horizon. Beck, who’s also taking on Hawaii’s ‘vampire rule” in Wolford v. Lopez, is once again suing the county; this time for taking longer than forty days to process a firearm “permit to acquire” when state law requires that applications be approved or denied “before the fortieth day from the date of application.”

The plaintiffs Beck is representing have had to wait anywhere from 43 to 165 days (and counting) to receive their permit to acquire. And unlike other states with “permit to purchase” laws, Hawaii requires residents to get a new permit each and every time they want to buy a gun. The permitting process requires a 14-day waiting period, and the permit is only good for 26 days. 

To make things even more ridiculous, every applicant must include the make, model, caliber, type of firearm, and serial number on their application. 

These delays, then, not only impact the buyer but the seller as well. Most gun shops in Hawaii will pull a firearm from the sales floor once someone has selected the gun and started the permit to acquire process, but lengthy delays in processing applications means FFLs are also delayed in using the funds from that sale to re-stock their inventory. 

In his complaint, Beck takes aim at the excessive wait times his clients have been subjected to, noting courts across the country have struck down much shorter waiting periods. 

The Tenth Circuit recently struck down New Mexico’s seven day waiting period to own a firearm. In doing so the Court found “[n]othing in the record suggests that the historically understood right to keep and bear arms tolerated universal and indiscriminate burdens on purchasing or acquiring firearms with no way to enjoy the full right.” Ortega v. Grisham, 148 F.4th 1134, 1155 (10th Cir.2025); 

Similarly, in preliminarily enjoining Maine’s three-day waiting period the Court there found “[t]he waiting period is not narrow since it applies to very near everyone seeking to purchase a firearm and their entire right to keep and bear any firearm at all through purchase is temporarily banned.” Beckwith v. Frey, 766 F.Supp. 3d 123, 134 (D. Me. 2025);

Beck isn’t challenging the 14-day waiting period that’s mandated by Hawaii’s permit to acquire statute or even the “dubious limit of forty days regarding the issuance of a PTA”… at least not in this lawsuit. Instead, Arnold v. Hawaii County is focused on getting the county to comply with state law and process these permit to acquire applications within the 40-day window given to licensing authorities. 

Beck has seen success in challenging similar delays by the Honolulu Police Department, and if Hawaii County tries to defend its turtle-like pace of processing permits I don’t think they’re going to be successful. Beck is raising both Second Amendment claims and violations of his clients’ due process rights, and the facts are clearly in his favor. 

Editor’s Note: Attorneys like Alan Beck and others across the country are doing everything they can to protect our Second Amendment rights and right to self-defense.

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