In the wake of last month’s horrific tragedy at a Diamond Head home where a handyman allegedly killed himself and his landlady after fatally shooting two Honolulu police officers, state lawmakers are weighing needed proposals to close loopholes in Hawaii’s firearms laws and provide more help to people with mental illnesses.
While gun control efforts in the islands routinely rank among the most stringent nationwide, it’s clear that additional tightening of access stands to improve public safety while also protecting citizen rights to responsible firearms ownership.
Also, lawmakers are spot-on in their push to step up the state’s ability to quickly provide mental health services for individuals who pose potentially violent threats. In the case of the Jan. 19 slayings, the assailant was known to have mental health issues and was involved in conflicts with his neighbors.
State House and Senate committees on Thursday held hearings on several sensible proposals. Among them was House Bill 2709, which aims to establish an accounting of firearms when a gun owner dies.
The measure requires a representative of a deceased gun owner to notify police of any firearm in the estate; and police would have to certify that firearms are properly transferred or disposed of before an estate may close. While multiple firearms were recovered from the Diamond Head crime scene, they were not registered to the landlady or her late husband, who was reportedly a gun owner.
House Bill 1733 rightly seeks to ban “ghost guns,” which can be made with 3D printers and are difficult to detect, even with a metal detector. In recent weeks, Honolulu Police Chief Susan Ballard has voiced concern about this emerging trend, in which firearms are assembled by way of mail-order pre-packaged kits. While some 60 of these ghost guns were registered here in one recent month, it’s not difficult for these owners to evade required background checks and registration requirements.
Among the proposals focused on mental health issues are calls to expedite mental evaluations of people who have committed misdemeanor or petty misdemeanor offenses, and reserve bed space available for short-term placements.
Currently, the state’s sole psychiatric hospital admits only criminal-court-order patients. However, with construction of a new Kaneohe hospital in the works, it’s encouraging that the state Department of Health (DOH) intends to free up 90 beds for other non-criminal patient cases in need of triage and stabilization treatment.
According to a report released last month jointly by the state Judiciary and DOH, if a judge determines that a defendant is not mentally fit, then the defendant should be placed into the custody of the Health Department — but not jailed if they are not a danger to themselves or others. The report calls for support of House Bill 1842, which requires charges to be dismissed against nonviolent defendants accused of petty crimes, and instead have them placed in an “appropriate facility for assessment, care, and treatment for up to seven days.”
In addition to enacting effective laws pertaining to gun control and mental health matters, Hawaii’s law enforcement officers, who are often serving as first responders in cases of mental health crisis, must continue to team up with seasoned partners in mental health care and social services.
Progress is underway through programs such as last year’s launch of Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training — a Honolulu Police Department partnership with the National Alliance on Mental Illness Hawaii and other community partners. While training for crisis situations will not defuse every potentially dangerous incident, trained officers are less likely to be injured themselves while saving lives.
