Earlier this month, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a challenge to a Hawaii gun law that renders concealed carry permits in that state practically useless. While the nation’s highest court appears poised to strike down the law, it nonetheless indicates gun control advocates’ deep misunderstanding of the importance of the right to armed self-defense.
In 2022, the Supreme Court struck down restrictions on concealed carry permits that states like Hawaii used to eliminate the right of public carry for most ordinary, law-abiding citizens. In response, Hawaii and several other states passed a series of spiteful measures—including the so-called Vampire Rule now before the court—intentionally designed to make as many public places as possible off-limits to gun owners.
The name “Vampire Rule” derives from old folklore that a vampire can’t enter a home unless first invited inside by the owner.
Historically, the default rule for public carry presumed that lawful gun owners could carry firearms on private property unless the owner expressly prohibited it. Hawaii’s law, however, turns this historical default on its head, essentially treating concealed carry permit holders like vampires.
It presumptively bans concealed carry permit holders from carrying firearms on private property—including private property that’s open to the public, such as stores, restaurants, and other businesses—unless the owner affirmatively grants them express permission.
While this might not seem like a big deal at first glance, the lower courts that upheld the law freely acknowledged that, regardless of the default rule, most private property owners will decline to post any signs that give or revoke specialized permission. As a practical matter, then, the rule all but ensures that the vast majority of public spaces remain “Second Amendment-free” zones. Indeed, this was the law’s entire goal.
In reality, Hawaiians have far more to gain from exercising their Second Amendment rights in public than their politicians are willing to admit. It’s not just that concealed carry permit holders are among the most law-abiding members of society and rarely commit crimes of any nature. It’s that, on the whole, lawful gun owners are incredibly effective at stopping the violence so often committed by unlawful gun owners.
Almost every major study—including the most recent report on the subject by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—has found that Americans use their firearms in self-defense between 500,000 and 3 million times annually. In 2021, a professor at the Georgetown McDonough School of Business conducted the most comprehensive study ever on the issue, concluding that roughly 1.6 million defensive gun uses occur in the U.S. every year.
For this reason, The Daily Signal publishes a monthly article highlighting some of the previous month’s many news stories on defensive gun use that you may have missed—or that might not have made it to the national spotlight in the first place.
(Read accounts from past months and years here.)
The examples below represent only a small portion of the news stories on defensive gun use during crimes that we found in September. You can explore more using The Heritage Foundation’s interactive Defensive Gun Use Database.
- Sept. 2, Decatur, Illinois. Early in the morning, a career criminal (who was out on parole while serving a 10-year prison sentence) entered a storage building, confronted the owner at gunpoint, and fired several rounds at him. The building owner—a concealed carry permit holder—returned fire, wounding the assailant. He then called 911 and successfully detained the injured suspect at gunpoint until police arrived.
- Sept. 3, Brooksville, Florida. Police say that a woman’s 42-year-old boyfriend began physically attacking her children, kicking in a locked door to continue his assault. The children tried to defend themselves with a curling iron and a kitchen knife before one of them grabbed a family gun and shot the boyfriend. The boyfriend, who was already on probation for federal gun and drug offenses, now faces additional charges for felony child abuse and battery.
- Sept. 7, Chicago, Illinois. Several armed suspects (including, allegedly, a local teen rapper known for posting gun-filled photos on social media) opened fire on a woman and her teen passenger during an attempted carjacking. Despite being shot twice in the leg, the woman—a concealed carry permit holder—was able to return fire, forcing the suspects to flee.
- Sept. 10, Milpitas, California. When a large group of masked individuals rushed into a jewelry store during an attempted smash-and-grab robbery, the store’s legally armed owner fired a single shot that sent them all fleeing. Notably, on the very same day, armed employees at an Oakland pawn shop engaged multiple armed robbers in a gun battle, killing two and wounding three others in self-defense.
- Sept. 13, Chattanooga, Tennessee. A man who later told police he was “tired of being homeless” attempted to carjack a vehicle from a mother of two young children as she and her father-in-law loaded the kids into the car just outside of a museum. Fortunately, a retired law enforcement officer happened to have made a wrong turn at precisely the right time, saw the carjacking unfold, and intervened. He drew his firearm, forced the suspect out of the driver’s seat, and held him at gunpoint until police arrived.
- Sept. 18, Ridgeland, South Carolina. Police say that two masked men—one equipped with a large blade described by some sources as a machete—entered a barbershop through a back door meant for employees and began threatening the barbers and customers alike and demanding their money. A legally armed barber drew his pistol and fatally shot the machete-wielding robber. The second suspect fled. The armed barber told reporters that he just did what he “had to do to make sure” he returned home to his wife and children. He explained that this is the “exact reason” we have the right to carry firearms.
- Sept. 20, Chicago, Illinois. When a woman’s ex-boyfriend showed up at her home threatening to kill her and her children, she called both 911 and a female relative. The relative, a concealed carry permit holder, arrived first and fatally shot the man after he broke a bedroom window to get inside the home. The man had an extensive criminal history, including 64 arrests and 11 criminal convictions since 2009—many of those for domestic violence offenses. Less than a month before the shooting, he’d been arrested at the same address and charged with domestic battery but granted pretrial release.
- Sept. 24, Alden, Minnesota. An elderly man fatally shot one of his adult sons in self-defense after the son entered the family property in violation of a restraining order and began assaulting various family members with a metal pipe.
- Sept. 26, Shelby, North Carolina. Three weeks after robbers stole nearly $86,000 from a small family business, the store’s owner once again found his livelihood threatened when two robbers targeted the store again. This time, however, the owner was armed. He shot one suspect in the ankle and sent both fleeing. Police quickly apprehended the injured suspect, a Honduran national with an active immigration removal order. The store owner’s wife expressed concerns that, if the suspect is merely deported, he’ll just return and continue posing a threat to the community.
- Sept. 28, Cumberland, Indiana. Police say that a woman fatally shot a man who tried to sexually assault her in her own home. The man began making “unwanted sexual advances” toward her, then followed her and started to assault her as she tried to get away. She managed to grab her gun and shoot the man one time in self-defense. The woman was treated at a hospital for injuries stemming from the assault but is expected to recover.
As these examples help demonstrate, lawful gun owners aren’t “vampires” who need to be feared or protected against. Instead, they play an integral role in public safety, capably protecting themselves, their loved ones, and complete strangers from violent crime—just as the Second Amendment intended.