A bill that would outlaw the transfer, sale and importation of most semi-automatic rifles and shotguns is likely to win approval of the Hawaii legislature on Wednesday, setting up a clash between Second Amendment organizations and Hawaiian gun owners on one side and the state’s Attorney General on the other. 

SB 401 defines “assault weapon” as any centerfire rifle that can accept a detachable magazine or has a fixed magazine with a capacity of more than ten rounds and one or more of the following features:

• a folding, telescoping, or adjustable stock
• a pistol grip or thumbhole stock
• any feature capable of functioning as a protruding grip that can be held by the non‑trigger hand
• a flash suppressor
• a barrel shroud
• a grenade launcher
• a bayonet mount
• a threaded barrel capable of accepting a barrel extender, flash suppressor, forward hand grip, or silencer

In addition to banning almost every model of centerfire semi-automatic rifles on the market, SB 401 also prohibits the sale, transfer, and importation of .50 caliber rifles. Existing owners are grandfathered in, for now anyway, but will only be able to legally possess their firearms on private property, while on the premises of a gun shop or gunsmith, at a licensed gun range, or while traveling to and from those locations; provided that the firearm in question is unloaded and cased.

Additionally, the bill bans the sale and possession of any magazine capable of holding more than ten rounds of ammunition, mirroring the California gun law that’s the subject of a lawsuit that will soon reach the Supreme Court. 

“The AR-15 style rifles with the large magazines are the mass murderers’ favorite because you don’t have to reload. You just keep firing. And they do have canisters that will hold up to as many as a hundred rounds,” said senate Judiciary Chair Karl Rhoads.

“This is one step I think we can take to prevent more gun violence in the future. And we don’t want to wait until we have another mass shooting, right? We want to act now,” said Erica Yamauchi of the Hawaii Chapter of Moms Demand Action.

Gun rights advocates point out that magazines for these types of firearms aren’t designed to hold just ten rounds. And some common hunting rifles could suddenly become illegal. 

“There would have been provisions in there for protecting people’s magazines, which now if this bill goes into law, these people will become felons overnight. And that’s basically something that is quite disgusting, honestly,” said Jon Abbott of the Hawaii Firearms Coalition.

State Rep. Diamond Garcia was the only member of the conference committee who voted against it.

“What we have to do is address the root cause — ghost guns, illegal firearms. And then hold those people accountable for possessing illegal firearms, not making it more restrictive toward law-abiding gun owners,” Garcia told Hawaii News Now.

No offense to Garcia, but saying the problem is “illegal firearms” just plays into the hands of those lawmakers who want to make some of the most popular firearms in the country illegal. Don’t hold people accountable for possessing guns. Hold them accountable for using them in the commission of a crime. 

SB 401 is even worse than the original version of Colorado’s SB 3 before it was amended to allow for the continued purchase of these semi-automatic firearms. And though supporters of the bill claim it’s not really a gun ban because current owners can keep them, there’s nothing to prevent lawmakers from amending the statute in the future to ban their possession too. Given they’re trying to do that with magazines already, I have no doubt that will be the next step if SB 401 becomes law. 

So long as the Supreme Court is silent on semi-auto bans, the anti-gunners will keep pushing the envelope, and SB 401, if enacted, would be the most sweeping gun ban since D.C. and Chicago enacted an outright ban on handguns in the 1970s and early 1980s. The Hawaii Firearms Coalition is already vowing legal action if SB 401 becomes law, but with the Ninth Circuit upholding California’s “assault weapon” and magazine bans, there’s little hope that the lower courts will provide any kind of meaningful relief to gun owners… and it’s an open question as to whether or not the Supreme Court will take up existing challenges to other gun and magazine bans in the near future.