STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2311

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 2956

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Twenty-Eighth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2016

State of Hawaii

Sir:

     Your Committee on Public Safety, Intergovernmental, and Military Affairs, to which was referred S.B. No. 2956 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO FIREARMS,"

begs leave to report as follows:

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to require firearm owners who have been disqualified from owning a firearm due to mental illness to immediately surrender their firearms and to authorize the chief of police to seize the firearms if the owner fails to comply.

     Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Honolulu Police Department and four individuals.  Your Committee received testimony in opposition to this measure from the Department of the Prosecuting Attorney for the County of Maui, Hawaii Rifle Association, National Rifle Association, and twenty-one individuals.

     Your Committee finds that currently, county police officers are prohibited, even in the most volatile situations, from seizing a firearm from an owner who is suffering from mental illness and is disqualified from ownership, possession, or control of firearms or ammunition.  Before a firearm can be seized from such an owner, the owner must be notified of the requirement to surrender the firearm via registered mail, at which point the owner has thirty days to voluntarily surrender or transfer the firearm.  Your Committee finds that the potential for harm to the owner or to the public during that window of time presents an unnecessary risk.  This measure will allow police officers to seize firearms immediately upon notification by the owner's treating physician or upon an emergency mental health hospitalization.  This measure will not change the required standard for seizure of a firearm.

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Public Safety, Intergovernmental, and Military Affairs that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2956 and recommends that it pass Second Reading and be referred to your Committee on Judiciary and Labor.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Public Safety, Intergovernmental, and Military Affairs,

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CLARENCE K. NISHIHARA, Chair