STAND. COM. REP. NO. 1057

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.B. No. 308

S.D. 2

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Thirty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2025

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Judiciary, to which was referred S.B. No. 308, S.D. 1, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO FIREARMS,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to expand the ban on pistols with a detachable magazine with over a ten-round capacity to any firearm with a detachable magazine with over a ten-round capacity.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Law Enforcement, League of Women Voters of Hawaii, Everytown for Gun Safety, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America Hawaiʻi Chapter, Students Demand Action for Gun Sense in America Hawaiʻi Chapter, Giffords, Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, Church of the Crossroads, Vet Voice Foundation, and twenty-six individuals.

Your Committee received testimony in opposition to this measure from the National Rifle Association of Hawaii, Aloha Freedom Coalition, Hawaii Rifle Association, SDM Training Group, Bows N Bullets, Young Guns, and numerous individuals.

Your Committee finds that high-capacity magazines enable shooters to fire more rounds without reloading, which can increase casualties in shooting incidents. Your Committee further finds that the State currently has a ten-round magazine limit on magazines that are capable of being used with a pistol. However, the law does not explicitly apply to magazines that can be used with a rifle or shotgun.

Your Committee notes that in mass shootings with four or more people killed between 2015 and 2022, high-capacity magazines led to more than twice as many people killed, and nearly ten times as many people wounded per incident on average. Your Committee further notes that in 2021, a study found that the federal prohibition on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines was associated with a significant decrease in public mass shootings and related casualties, preventing at least eleven public mass shootings during the ten years it was in effect. However, data suggests that the use of firearms with large-capacity magazines in crime has substantially increased since the expiration of the federal assault weapons and large-capacity magazine ban in 2004, with estimates suggesting that nearly forty percent of guns used in serious violent crimes, including murders of law enforcement officers, are equipped with high-capacity magazines. Your Committee also notes that a majority of voters in the State, including a majority of gun owners, support a ban on high-capacity magazines, with a 2024 Ward Research survey of registered voters across the State finding that eighty percent of respondents saying that high-capacity magazines that exceed ten rounds should be banned, including sixty-five percent of gun owners.

Your Committee has amended this measure by:

(1) Increasing the maximum round capacity for a detachable magazine for a firearm other than a pistol from ten rounds to thirty rounds;

(2) Exempting detachable ammunition magazines with a capacity in excess of thirty rounds that are designed for or capable of use with any firearm other than a pistol obtained before January 1, 2026; and

(3) Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity and consistency.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Judiciary that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 308, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 308, S.D. 2.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Judiciary,

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KARL RHOADS, Chair