Hawaii can be a dangerous place, like any population center, but by one measure, perhaps it’s less so than it might be.
Gun regulation is tighter here than in many other places, fortunately, owing to the state’s historically cautious approach to firearms access. Like other aspects of public policy, the state owes some of its stance on this issue to kingdom law, predating annexation and statehood.
King Kamehameha III, in the most definitive example, in 1833, prohibited public possession of any “dangerous weapon.”
Of course, U.S. law now prevails, but the impulse to keep firearms under control is long established in the islands — and persistent, as it should be.
This is why the state must maintain that position, pushing back against a federal lawsuit filed last week. The complaint, filed by the Second Amendment Foundation, contends that the state’s current restriction against firearm sales to 18- to 20-year-olds violates that particular amendment in the U.S. Constitution, which protects gun rights.
The lawsuit asserts that Hawaii is the only state with this age-based restriction currently on its books, and that many of the foundation’s members here are in that age group and are “adversely and directly harmed and injured” by the restriction.
The charge is that the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the landmark New York State Rifle &Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen case reaffirmed the right to keep arms, and thus makes Hawaii’s age restriction unjust.
However, there are good counterarguments based on the history of age restrictions nationwide, including Hawaii’s own strict gun regulation. The nation’s high court in its Bruen ruling allowed for local authorities to impose some regulation. The constitutionality of these local gun laws would be based on their consistency with historical tradition.
Nationally in the past, dozens of jurisdictions have had age restrictions, according to the Rockefeller Institute of Government, a public-policy think tank. Hawaii’s historical firearms tradition goes far back, with the specific ban on gun ownership under age 21 enacted in 1994, this year expanding also to bar ammunition ownership.
This lawsuit arises at the same time that Honolulu police are rightly seeking a crackdown on a more recent development on the Second Amendment landscape: the advent of “ghost guns.”
Hawaii’s existing 4-year-old ghost gun law prohibits a person who is not licensed to manufacture firearms from doing so with a 3-D printer or as part of a kit, and has requirements for serial numbers and labeling.
The Honolulu Police Department is seeking to impede further the proliferation of these privately made, unregulated firearms. Last week officials showed how these weapons can be assembled out of locally crafted polymer parts. Police said they have no idea how many of these exist locally, a chilling observation. That is why the department is pushing for state legislation that would:
>> Make possession of three or more gun parts a misdemeanor, prompting education of gun owners about the issue.
>> Make possession of any one gun part by a convicted felon a Class B felony.
>> Regulate the sale and transfer of weapons that qualify as only 80% of a completed weapon between states.
According to HPD, juveniles are often found possessing ghost guns, which can be an entry point into criminal activity.
That’s all the more reason why an age restriction on the legal ownership and bearing of arms is a rational policy. In 2019, FBI data showed that the age cohort committing the most homicides was 19-year-olds.
If the Bruen ruling allows for historically based gun regulation by local authorities, surely Hawaii ought to be able to defend its laws — in the interest of public safety and the guidance of its young adults.
