Whether the Bruen test determines when a State's criminal prosecution for carrying a handgun without a license violates the Second Amendment?

QUESTION PRESENTED The right to “bear and keep Arms” is protected by the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution and incorporated under the Fourteenth. In New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), this Court put forth the test lower courts must use to determine when Government regulations infringe upon a person’s Second Amendment rights. The State of Hawai‘i is prosecuting Christopher L. Wilson for carrying a handgun without a license. When he asserted that his conduct was protected by the Second Amendment, the State neither contested his assertion nor attempted to “affirmatively prove that its firearm regulation is part of the historical tradition that delimits the outer bounds of the right to keep and bear arms.” Bruen, 597 U.S. at 19. The Hawai'i Supreme Court ruled for the State. It accused this Court of “handpick[ing] history to make its own rules” and declared that the Bruen test is “fuzzy,” “backward-looking,” and “unravels durable law.” It held that the mere existence of a licensing scheme allows the State to prosecute. The State is now free to disregard Bruen and regulate protected conduct by criminally enforcing an unconstitutional licensing scheme. The holding sharply conflicts with this Court’s decisions on the Second Amendment. The question presented is: Whether the Bruen test determines when a State’s criminal prosecution for carrying a handgun without a license violates the Second Amendment?