Hawaii becomes first state to register gun owners in FBI database
NRA: “Exercising a constitutional right is not inherently suspicious”
Governor David Ige of Hawaii has signed into law a bill that requires gun owners in that state to be registered in an FBI database that will automatically notify police if an Hawaii resident is arrested in another state.
Hawaii signed a bill Thursday to become the first state to enter gun owners into an FBI database that will automatically notify police if an island resident is arrested anywhere else in the country.
Gov. David Ige said in a statement that the legislation is about community safety and responsible gun ownership. He said it will help law enforcement agencies protect Hawaii residents and visitors.
#hinews: Hawai‘i becomes 1st state in nation to auth. enrollment of firearms owners in centralized info system pic.twitter.com/x6pwbGcEyX
— Governor David Ige (@GovHawaii) June 24, 2016
Fox News continues:
State Sen. Will Espero, who introduced the bill, and the Honolulu Police Department said the measure could serve as a model for other states. However, critics believe gun owners shouldn’t have to be entered in a database to practice a constitutional right.
“I don’t like the idea of us being entered into a database. It basically tells us that they know where the guns are, they can go grab them” Jerry Ilo, a firearm and hunting instructor for the state, told the Associated Press last month. “We get the feeling that Big Brother is watching us.”
The National Rifle Association and the Hawaii Rifle Association had called on their members to oppose the registration bill and the measure barring those convicted of stalking or sex assault from owning or possessing a gun.
“This is an extremely dangerous bill. Exercising a constitutional right is not inherently suspicious,” Amy Hunter for the National Rifle Association, said in May. “Hawaii will now be treating firearms as suspect and subject to constant monitoring.”
Breaking: exercising constitutional rights in #Hawaii now gets you entered into a federal watchlist, er, database https://t.co/kL4YSPZnwc
— NRA (@NRA) June 24, 2016
According to CNN, this data will be used to “evaluate whether the firearm owner may continue to legally possess and own firearms,” the Hawaii governor’s office said in a statement.”
CNN continues:
During the public comment process regarding the bill, opponent Quentin Kealoha asked: “Why are law abiding citizens exercising their constitutional right being entered into a criminal database? Would you enter people exercising their right to free speech into a criminal database?”Supporters countered that adding gun owners to the database was needed because the initial background check wasn’t sufficient.Maj. Richard Robinson from the Honolulu Police Department wrote that after the initial background check, there are no further checks on the gun owner.“As a result, the county police departments have no way of knowing if a current Hawaii firearm owner has been convicted of a crime in another state that would prohibit him or her from owning a firearm,” Robinson wrote in a letter to the State House in March. The new law would “in essence provide an ongoing background check on firearm owners to determine their eligibility to own and possess a firearm.”
This was one of three new gun grabbing control measures the governor signed into law.
Again from CNN:
The other gun measures signed into Hawaii state law Thursday prohibit offenders who have stalked or committed sexual assault from owning guns. At least 11 other states have some sort of laws restricting people who’ve been convicted of stalking from possessing guns.
. . . . The third new law requires gun owners to surrender their firearms and ammunition to the police if they’ve been disqualified to possess the weapons “due to a diagnosis of having a significant behavioral, emotional, or mental disorder, or due to emergency or involuntary admission to a psychiatric facility.”
If the person does not voluntarily give up their arms, the police chief has permission to seize the weapons.
The full text of the new measures can be read here, here, and here.
[Featured image via Twitter]
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Comments
“Adventures in Paradise”….or shall we accurately say “misadventures”. This further exposes the agenda of questioning the “loyalty” of Americans who choose to engage in constitutional actions as opposed by political (NOT Constitutional) entities. This is a pure distillation of the Left designating citizens as “pre-crime” for their actions. The road to serfdom is being engineered and paved by the “Democrat” party.
This would seem to be in direct conflict with FOPA but since when have Democrats given a shit about the rule of law?
That needs to be challenged in court. It’s unconstitutional. Courts usually throw these fascist laws out.
Nice idea, but we’re talking about the Ninth Circus here.
Wonder how people would feel if they were required to register their legal abortions.
Great, now the Left will know where the guns are when they finally TRY to confisacte them.. or as I like to look at it, the people to avoid knowing they would get shot attempting to take a man’s gun away.
If Hawaii has a problem with American citizens exercising their Constitutional rights, maybe Hawaii should consider no longer being a part of the United States.
I believe many there want “out” anyway. Were it not such a great fixed-place aircraft carrier, I’d say cut ’em loose.
My husband used to tell me there wasn’t much they didn’t get wrong there. Although he missed old friends, he didn’t want to go back to visit. He finally even decided against being buried in Punchbowl.
I may be wrong, BUT ….
It was my understanding that the GCA of 1968 forbid the FBI / ATF / DOJ from keeping any kind of gun / gun owner registration or data base on gun owners. If it’s illegal for the Feds to keep a registration data base, they couldn’t legally keep custody of such a data base for one of the States like Hawaii. Now Hawaii might be able to keep their own list, but having it tied through the Feds would be illegal. So, if that is correct, then the legislation won’t do what it’s intended to do…. having the FBI notify them of a Hawaiian residents arrest in another State.
Something’s going to have to GIVE somewhere. With all the Gun Control being attempted / passed in radical States like CA, HI, NJ, MD,NY, etc. etc. let along the current attempts in Congress, we’re either going to gain our 2A freedoms, or we will lose them, along with the rest of the Bill of Rights. The Next President (through Supreme Court appointments), will be the deciding factor, in my opinion. Elections have consequences.
No doubt it will be struck down, years from now. Then it will take more years to have the database purged.
In the meantime, the gun-grabbers infringe merrily away.
As you point out, the next few SCOTUS appointments will decide the matter. This is not what those lying pols are saying it’s about. It’s a gun confiscation registry.
All they need is to get the right decision overturning or weakening Heller and Hawaii knows where the guns are.
Exactly !
Also, you’re thinking of 18 U.S.C. 926, which became law pursuant to the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986. It prohibits federal governments from maintaining such registries as Hawaii is now demanding.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/926
“No such rule or regulation prescribed after the date of the enactment of the Firearms Owners’ Protection Act may require that records required to be maintained under this chapter or any portion of the contents of such records, be recorded at or transferred to a facility owned, managed, or controlled by the United States or any State or any political subdivision thereof, nor that any system of registration of firearms, firearms owners, or firearms transactions or dispositions be established. Nothing in this section expands or restricts the Secretary’s [1] authority to inquire into the disposition of any firearm in the course of a criminal investigation.”
I do not see how it would be legal for the FBI to cooperate with Hawaii’s scheme. If I were a congresscritter I’d make sure that that no funding can be used to implement it. And I’d phrase my amendment to along the lines of “no monies may be used to violate 18 U.S.C. which prohibits the FBI from establishing a registry of firearms owners, firearms, and firearms transactions.”
Make the Democrats drop the mask and fight to fund a program that breaks the law.
Thanks for the correction and the citation. From the wording, this “List” is all ready prohibited by law and should be a slam dunk to get it enjoined before it goes into effect.
“No such rule or regulation prescribed after the date of the enactment of the Firearms Owners’ Protection Act may require that records required to be maintained ………………. …….(by )any STATE or any political subdivision thereof, ………..
TRO anyone?
Unlike Planned Parenthood, Planned Defense does not claim a near perfect abortion rate. So, self-defense is considered immoral in liberal societies following instruction from gods in the twilight zone (i.e. penumbra), the commandments (i.e. “laws”) of their judges, and the emotional pleas of their faithful acolytes.
I was getting worried there, n.n, about a dozen comments without the word “penumbra.” That still doesn’t mean I have any clue what you are talking about.
Gun Control is not now, or ever has been, about guns, it’s all about control.
Every totalitarian state knows it must disarm its subjects. Disarming the colonists was Britain’s intention in 1775 at Lexington, et al. It was Germany’s intention in the 1920s and 1930s. One group accepted it and one group did not. How did that work out for each? Why did the Democrats want to disarm the freed slaves after the Civil War? So the former slaves would be safer?
Now the Hawaii law can just be “tuned up” to make it work better over the next few years as it was done in Germany — all with stated good intentions each time.
Since the guns possessed by the criminals will not be in the database, how will the law will reduce crime? Which crimes? So, what is its real purpose? Will there be any followup analysis to see if it worked? Yea, I know. Do you ever wonder why no followup like is done in business?
Notice what liars and liberals (I repeat myself) do. They push a potential benefit in isolation of its cost (value = benefit at what cost). Their stated intention, regardless of its cost or absurdity, is what you are to use as a basis to judge a liberal and his laws. And, the ruling class liberals never tell you their true intention which is control. Liberty is anathema to a leftist. Apparently the Constitution is now anathema to Hawaii. How very sad is their decline. Paradise Lost.
It has been shown time and time again that legal gun owners, especially those who have CCW permits, have extremely low crime rates including gun homicide rates. (http://crimeresearch.org/ 2015/02/comparing-conviction-rates-between-police-and-concealed-carry-permit-holders/) (take out the space to get the link to work)
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If gun owners have a gun homicide rate of less than 0.1/100,000 and convicted criminals (the nature of the actual crime is not important) have rates ranging from around 50/100,000 for white criminals to over 300/100,000 for black criminals, then how does it make any rational sense to track those who are the most lawful while essentially not enforcing many existing gun laws that manage criminal behavior (such as prosecuting less than 1% of those criminals who lie on the federal background check forms in their effort to purchase a gun).
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Additionally, if criminals are renown for ignoring the law, then what good is passing new laws that they will ignore? All this law does is to make it more likely that lawful citizens will be turned into criminals.
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This new law will accomplish nothing useful (unless the state decides to confiscate gun) to affect crime rates because it targets the wrong population and the wrong approach. This is why this law is the perfect solution for the liberals who want to control us. It has nothing to do with success, nothing to do with logic, and nothing to do with efficiency and has everything to do with control and uneducated paranoia.
Wadda ya know, presto chango and we have a federal gun registry. All the bad guys and terrorists will sign up for this and golly gee whiz Dems have made our country safe!
A couple of more thoughts on this:
1) Watch for Maj. Richard Robinson from the Honolulu Police Department to campaign for the Chief of HPD down the road. He knows what the mayors want.
2) “This is about our community’s safety and responsible gun ownership.” Gov. Ige.
I have to give the governor credit on point #2. I think it is very hard to make such a vague statement and still be completely wrong. Smart guy I guess.
I did not see the political party behind this named anywhere. I guess it wasn’t the Tea Party.
It seems to me that for the sake of community safety in Hawaii, teachers, daycare workers, social workers, police officers, fireman and a really long list of other individuals that work closely with the public and specifically vulnerable members of the public may have in the past or at sometime in the future commit a crime in another state that could call into question the safety of the community in Hawaii. Have they been informed about the need for them to be documented in the FBI database.