Given the large Democratic majority in the Hawaii legislature and the state’s longstanding hostility towards the right to keep and bear arms, the demise of a proposed ban on the vast majority of semi-automatic rifles on May 1 was a welcome surprise for Second Amendment advocates. 

Hawaii gun owners got even more good news this week when Senate Judiciary Chair Karl Rhoads, who was one of the leading proponents of SB 401, told Honolulu Civil Beat that he has no plans to revive the bill next session, calling it “a waste of time,” to bring it up during an election year.

That in itself is an unexpected twist, since Democrats have adopted expansive “gun-free zones” and other restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms in recent years. But according to Civil Beat reporter Kevin Dayton, further gun control efforts could be stymied by a coalition of Republicans and Democrats representing more rural parts of the state. 

The ban on those guns was effectively blocked at the last minute by Democratic Sen. Lynn DeCoite, who said she wanted to exclude rural residents, subsistence hunters and conservation workers who use those weapons to combat invasive species such as axis deer and feral pigs.

Experts in firearms laws say the language DeCoite offered in her proposed amendment would have diluted the proposed restrictions in Senate Bill 401 so completely that the new law would have been largely unenforceable. 

Senate Judiciary Chair Karl Rhoads, a leading advocate for the bill, said as much during the debate before the pivotal vote on the Senate floor. “This amendment creates a huge carve-out for the sale of assault weapons,” he told his colleagues. “If we pass it, it basically eviscerates the underlying bill.”

According to Republican Sen. Brenton Awa that was the whole point. “Essentially what this amendment does, if you don’t get caught up in everything that’s in it, is allows us to kill the bill,” he said.

None of the other senators bothered to argue with Awa, and minutes later he proved to be correct. The amendment passed 13-12, with Senate President Ron Kouchi from Kauaʻi casting the tie-breaking vote. He then announced the bill was shelved for the year.

That vote was a strikingly rare example of Senate Democrats joining with their Republican colleagues to muster a majority. It also suggests Hawaiʻi’s longstanding political consensus on firearms may be fracturing as senators from mostly rural districts join forces with a handful of Republicans to push back on the issue.

Dayton’s full piece details the “convoluted” politics that led to the defeat of SB 401 and is well worth a read. The big takeaway is that while Hawaii isn’t going to adopt Constitutional Carry or other pro-2A measures anytime soon, there does appear to be a growing reluctance to pass the kind of sweeping gun controls that groups like Everytown have been lobbying for. 

SB 401 had the support of anti-gun groups, as well as the backing of Gov. Josh Green. And DeCoite’s amendment would likely have been defeated were it not for the “yes” vote by Senate President Ron Kouchi. The Democrat told the Civil Beat that he supported the carveouts because he represents a “large hunter and fisher group on Kauaʻi, and they are putting food on their table as part of the subsistence in meeting some of the challenging economic times.”

Kouchi also expressed concerns that the magazine ban portion of SB 401, which contained no grandfather clause, would have turned constituents into felons for keeping ahold of the magazines that they had lawfully purchased. 

While I’d much rather Kouchi and DeCoite oppose a gun ban on principle instead of citing concerns about invasive species and the impact on subsistence hunting, at the end of the day they were still responsible for defanging and defeating a top priority for the gun control lobby this year; not only in Hawaii but across the country. I certainly hope this is the start of a new coalition that will defend the right to keep and bear arms in what’s traditionally been hostile territory, and that this is just the first of many gun control bills to get swatted down by a bipartisan group of Hawaiian legislators.