After a mass shooting that killed 17 people at a southern Florida high school, legislators and residents in Hawaii are reassessing the effectiveness of state and federal gun laws.
Koloa resident Karen Cos said it should be more difficult for people to obtain guns, not withstanding the Second Amendment.
“I don’t think that anybody who wants to own a gun should be able to get a gun,” she said. “There has to be a reason that they can carry a gun. To end gun violence, it needs to be more difficult for guns to be obtained.”
Rockal Vanasihan of Kekaha is not sure how we can end gun violence in our country and doesn’t understand why people are allowed to own guns.
“I know it’s for safety reasons, because in the Mainland the crime rate is higher I guess,” she said. “I guess it’s safe for everybody, but you just never know what people intend to do.”
Jason Bryant, owner of JGB Arms in Lihue, said Hawaii has some of the most stringent gun laws in the nation.
“I cannot imagine a new piece of gun legislation beyond what Hawaii already has in place that could have prevented the evil that occurred in Parkland, Florida. I don’t believe a piece of paper can do anything to stop premeditated evil,” he said.
Some elected leaders called for a ban on assault weapons.
“The tragedy in Parkland is the latest reminder that Congress must advance gun violence prevention legislation, beginning with a ban on assault weapons and the significant expansion of background checks and waiting periods for potential buyers,” said U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa. “It does not make sense to make military-grade weaponry available to civilians.”
Hanabusa co-sponsored the Assault Weapons Ban of 2013 (H.R. 437) introduced in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut that claimed the lives of 20 children and six adults. The bill would have amended the federal criminal code to ban the import, sale, manufacture, transfer or possession of semiautomatic assault weapons. However, the proposed bill did not receive a hearing.
“There is a balance that must be struck between reasonable gun control legislation and respecting the rights of law-abiding gun owners,” Hanabusa said. “The policies we have in Hawaii should be examined as a blueprint for federal gun-violence prevention legislation.”
Sen. Mazie Hirono said, “Thoughts, prayers, and moments of silence will not curb the epidemic of mass shootings in our country. Congress must enact legislation to ban assault weapons, limit the capacity of ammunition clips and strengthen background checks and reporting.”
In November, Hirono introduced legislation to close what she called a loophole in the Uniform Code of Military Justice that enables convicted abusers to purchase firearms. She is also co-sponsor of Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s Assault Weapons Ban of 2017 and legislation to ban high-capacity ammunition clips.
“There are tough questions that must be answered about the shooter, including why many red flags that were raised about him previously did not prevent his ability to acquire an AR-15 and a high volume of ammunition,” said Rep. Tulsi Gabbard. “But we don’t have to wait for answers to these questions for Congress to pass legislation already supported by a majority of Americans, like universal background checks, closing the gun show loophole and reinstating a federal ban on military-style assault weapons.”
“The stakes are too high to allow partisan politics to get in the way of common sense change,” she added.
Congressman Mike Thompson, chair of the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, said “I am a gun owner. I support the Second Amendment. I also carried an assault weapon for a tour of duty in Vietnam. I know what they are used for. I know what they are capable of. And, personally, I believe there is no place in a civilized society to have these things. We don’t need them. We know the damage that they have done.”
Hawaii is one of the few states where firearms buyers are required to surrender their mental health records prior to firearm purchases. The state tracks legal sale of all firearms (including private sale of used firearms), bans sale and ownership of automatic firearms, allows confiscation of privately owned firearms (based purely on suspicion derived by law enforcement), and restricts accessibility of firearms from minors.
Some Kauai residents with friends and family in Florida have long referred to it as the Sunshine “Gunshine” State due to the peninsula’s gun-like borders, but also because the state has issued nearly 1.8-million active concealed permits, more than any other state in the Union.
Puhi’s Mona Green, originally from Spokane, Wash., said that we need to take away the hard automatic guns.
“I don’t think that we should be selling them in our country. There’s no need for them,” she said.
She said we need to put metal doors in classrooms that lock from the inside and talk openly with children and co-workers about violent situations that have been happening.
“We need to really look at the people that are next to us that might be suffering from different situations mentally, physically,” she added.
First off AR does not stand for assault rifle! It stands for Armalite Rifle. Any rifle used to kill people is an assault rifle. People like Karen Cos who says “it should be more difficult for people to obtain guns” probably never tried to get a gun in Hawaii. As Jason Bryant said Hawaii has some of the most stringent gun laws in the nation already. These politicians are just trying to ride the wave of the next thing to get noticed so they can get re-elected and do nothing again! A new law would not have stopped what happened. Case in point drugs are illegal but they still manage to get drugs. Go and look up the worst crime rate areas in America, they have the strictest gun laws already. All your doing is taking gun rights out of legal citizens hands.
It always amazes me how ignorant people are when it comes to guns and what types are and are not available here in Hawaii. Mona Green, for instance, says “we need to take away the hard automatic guns”. Well Mona, in Hawaii no civilian can own an automatic weapon. Semi-auto yes. There’s a big difference.
I can pretty much guarantee that when the investigation into Cruz, the Florida punk, is concluded it will be revealed that he is on some kind of medication for anxiety, depression or other disorder. These drugs list suicidal and homicidal urges as known side effects. Moreover, the fact is that EVERY school or other mass shooter has been on one of these psychotropic drugs. A nationwide effort must be made to stop the prescription of these drugs to any kid that is difficult to manage. When I was in school in the 50s and 60s there were no drugs administered to student…unless you can call a yardstick a drug. There were also no school shootings to speak of.
This case as with others can also be laid at the feet of the FBI, police and school administrators who ignored all the signs that Cruz was ripe for an incident like this. He actually stated on his social media account that he wanted to be a professional mass shooter. What more needs to be said? It’s the people, not the guns.
RG DeSoto
You do realize that “assault weapon” is a made-up term that has no basis in reality, right? There are “assault rifles”, but these are full-auto military weapons that no civilian in Hawaii is permitted to own legally and are *very* expensive in those states where they are legally allowed.
“What’s up Les?” 3 words. On this topic at UH. Baseball. High security.
Cretinous simpletons love to stroke those long gun barrels whenever they’re overwhelmed by shame over their physical shortcomings!
Cretinous simpletons believe even the slightest change in gun laws will lead to the loss of all their compensations for inadequacy!
After all, after the past 40 year crackdown on drunk driving completely changed the culture in America surrounding that activity, we all had our cars taken away; didn’t we?
GUNS DONT KILL PEOPLE, PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE!!!!!