Gov. David Ige signed a bill Thursday to raise a “red flag” to alert law enforcement officials whenever people who are prohibited from owning a firearm apply for a gun permit anyway and are rejected.
Hawaii prohibits convicted felons, convicted domestic abusers and severely mentally ill people from owning guns, but dozens and sometimes hundreds of ineligible people in Hawaii still apply for permission to own one each year.
House Bill 459, which Ige signed into law Thursday at the state Capitol, requires that police notify the state
attorney general, the county prosecutor, the U.S. attorney and the director of the state Department of Public Safety when an application for a firearm is rejected.
The new law, which took effect immediately as Act 63, also requires police to notify the courts if an applicant is subject to a restraining order, and to notify probation and parole officials if the applicant is under the supervision of those authorities.
There were 19,752 firearm permit applications filed
with Hawaii police departments in 2015, and 212 were denied, according to a report by the state Attorney General’s Office.
More than a third of those applications were denied
because the applicants had criminal histories, including people who had convictions or cases pending for robbery, murder and sexual assault. Another 21 were involved in domestic violence cases, and 29 others were involved in assault cases, according to the report.
Another 45 people were denied permits because
they had mental health issues, according to the
attorney general’s report.
Bennett Cale, a Maui resident and the Hawaii chapter leader of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, said the new law is “just ensuring that law enforcement have important information about dangerous people in their communities. It is common sense.”
It is a felony in Hawaii for anyone to provide false information about criminal or mental health histories on a firearm application, but Cale said those so-called “lie-and-try” offenses are rarely prosecuted. A total of 143 applicants who were denied permits in 2015 falsified information on their firearm applications, according to the attorney general’s report.
Given that record,
“it’s hard to believe that until today, when a convicted felon or domestic abuser tried to buy a gun there was no process to alert the relevant authorities,” Cale said in a written statement.
A spokeswoman for Moms Demand Action said that Tennessee and Washington state have similar laws, and the organization has been working with a group called Everytown for Gun Safety to convince more states to adopt them.
Ige credited state Rep. Gregg Takayama (D, Pearl City-Waimalu-Pacific Palisades) with drafting the bill.
“It should send up a red flag to all of our criminal justice system whenever someone … is attempting to get a firearm but is a convicted felon or mentally ill and is unsuitable to obtain a firearm,” Takayama said.
Harvey Gerwig, president of the Hawaii Rifle Association, said he doesn’t think the new law will be particularly useful, but his organization did not object to it.
“We don’t have a problem with it. I don’t see it as being onerous,” Gerwig said. “If somebody shouldn’t be buying a firearm, and then there are other agencies notified upon that attempt, I don’t have a problem with that. “
