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Taking aim at
tougher laws
Both sides believe that legislators
are likely to approve something
on re-registration this year,
after emotional debateCrowd debates gun issues
By Richard Borreca
Giving gun bills a shot
How to buy a gun in Hawaii
Star-BulletinIF you get shot, be warned that it's nothing like it happens in the movies.
On the big screen, if the shot doesn't kill you, someone pulls out the offending bullet and off you go with a bandage. In real life, the trauma caused by a projectile traveling 1,500 feet per second before it slams into soft flesh and bone is enormous.
"No matter where you are shot, it is a long process of diagnosis," said Dr. Sidney Lee, an emergency room physician at Queen's Medical Center. "It is also time consuming and costly. Usually, gun-shot victims have to be admitted and multiple doctors will work on a single patient."
In surgery, there is no standard way to treat a bullet wound, Lee said.
Upon entry to the emergency room, the victim's clothes are removed as doctors and nurses check for other bullet wounds. The patient is given oxygen and the emergency-room team checks to make sure the bullet didn't puncture the lungs. Then the repair work begins.Legislators today were to reopen the debate on gun control. Although Hawaii has the strictest gun-control laws in the nation, lawmakers are planning changes.
But every change runs up against vocal public opposition.
For the first time, the Cayetano administration is supporting both re-registration of guns and allowing the sale of ammunition only to legally registered gun owners.
Gov. Ben Cayetano, himself a gun owner, supports both re-registration and limiting the purchase of ammunition to registered gun owners.
State Rep. Ed Case, House Democratic leader, says the political cost is mostly in the controversy, not in actual votes.
"The NRA (National Rifle Association) is just not carrying the day here," says Case, a strong supporter of gun control.
"Every day, a greater number of groups are willing to step forward and say, 'Let's try to get guns out of Hawaii.' Police, social groups and now a broadening coalition of health-care professionals have joined."
But "the majority in Hawaii that supports gun control is quiet about their support and the minority is very vocal," Case said. "So, in the Legislature, you have to sift through the message and gut-check it against what you really believe."In the Senate, Judiciary Committee Co-Chairman Matt Matsunaga says the chances are good this year for the passage of some major reforms.
"My understanding is that it is a very small segment, but a vocal segment," that opposes the reforms, he said. "I think the public consistently says it wants stronger gun laws and I support it."
The Hawaii Firearms Coalition is trying to persuade the Legislature to control handgun violence by requiring gun owners to register their guns every year, to include trigger or safety locks on guns and to permit sales of ammunition only to legally registered gun owners.
Arguing the other side is Dr. Max Cooper, vice president of the Hawaii Rifle Association, who said Hawaii, with its detailed gun registration laws, needs better enforcement, not new legislation.
"Hawaii, for its size and crime rate, has the strictest laws in the country," Cooper said.
Cooper says the position of gun owners is reasonable, if only legislators listen.
"When we get a chance to speak and people listen objectively, we usually win," he said. "Those who listen with their emotions and are prejudiced against the private ownership of guns, like Ed Case, we can't reach."
Both sides, however, agree that the Legislature is likely to pass something on the re-registration of handguns this year.
Cooper hopes the result is a bill making police and the medical community responsible to report people who have a changed ownership status, while Case and Matsunaga want the burden to rest on gun owners.
The issue of gun control was re-opened in November when seven men were gunned down in their office at the Xerox Corp. building on Nimitz Highway. Byran Uyesugi, charged with the killings, had 18 guns, including 11 handguns, five rifles and two shotguns.
Police denied him a permit to register another gun in 1994, when a required background check showed that he had been arrested for criminal property damage. But his arsenal was not touched.
Gun control supporters reason that guns would be less likely to fall into dangerous hands if owners had to register every year.
"It is a classic feel-good bill that would add burdens to law-abiding citizens," responded Cooper, who is equally opposed to restricting the sale of ammunition to registered gun owners.If people are willing to violate the law and steal guns, Cooper said, what is to stop them from escalating the crime and stealing bullets, as well?
"You can't restrict people from contraband items," Cooper said.
Cyrus Lee, president and owner of Security Equipment Corp., an established Honolulu guns and weapons store, said the police investigation is so thorough that only those who are "squeaky clean" wind up with a legally registered weapon.
He noted that Dominic Kealoha, who shot himself to death after a 13-hour standoff with police last month, was not supposed to have the gun he had taped to his hand. Kealoha was a felon on parole. The gun he used had been reported stolen in a recent burglary.
"There shouldn't be any means for these people to get guns and the people who sell them should be punished," said Lee.
The problem, the Firearms Coalition says, is that there is no systematic way today to detect if a firearms owner has become unqualified for ownership.
Re-registration would make gun owners more responsible for accounting for their weapons if they had to physically produce them every year upon registration, the coalition says.
It also argues that, if car registrations and driver's licenses have to be renewed regularly, why not weapons designed to kill?
For Frank Kuhl of the Firearms Coalition, a math teacher and facilities manager at St. Andrew's Priory, the discussion of handgun control is not abstract.
His 20-year-old son was shot to death just two months ago, when two robbers broke into his home in a small logging town in British Columbia, Canada.
"You can't ask me what price to put on one life. The worst has already happened to me. I don't want any more families to go through it," he said.
After his son's funeral, Kuhl saw a television feature about the Bell Campaign, an organization modeled after Mothers Against Drunk Driving, offering support to surviving gun victims and to the families and friends of those killed by guns.
"What I feel in my heart every day, nobody should have to feel," said Kuhl. "If I can say or do anything to prevent one more family from going through the loss we live with every day, then it is worth it."
Under the law, buying a gun in Hawaii is a multiweek process. A look at the steps: How to buy a gun in Hawaii
1. You are required to take a gun-safety class. The state offers a free class via the Department of Land and Natural Resources' hunter education program -- six hours a day for two days -- but there usually is a two-month waiting list.
Gun stores also offer an approved four-hour safety class, two of those hours on the firing range. It costs $65-$100, says Cyrus Lee, owner of Security Equipment Corp.
2. With your safety-course affidavit, head to a gun store and select your firearm. The clerk must record the make, model, serial number and caliber of the weapon. You then take that information -- but not the gun -- to the police department.
3. At the police department, fill out a request for "Permit to acquire a gun." You must give police permission to conduct a background check, including a release saying they may check with your family doctor and state mental health agencies. You also must give police a set of fingerprints, which are sent to the FBI for further checks.
The police may also check your criminal history, including juvenile background. If you have a record of mental illness, depression, domestic violence or are a felon, you cannot buy a gun, says Honolulu police Sgt. Chriz Caraang. He adds that not telling the truth is a felony, and that every month, about four gun applicants are denied.
Four clerks at the police station handle registration and several officers are attached to the firearm registration unit to inspect gun shops and do the mental records reviews.
4. If everything checks out, you can buy the gun. You must take the gun to the police station. There, its serial number is recorded and matched against the permit to acquire and checked that it is legal -- i.e., that it doesn't have a sawed-off barrel or a silencer.
When you apply for a gun, the police check to see if you have a criminal record or mental history that would forbid ownership. No gun allowed if . . .
According to Hawaii law, you may NOT possess a gun if:
You are under indictment for, or have waived indictment for, or have been bound over to the Circuit Court for, or have been convicted in the state or elsewhere of having committed: a felony, any crime of violence, or an illegal sale of any drug.
