The Hawaii Senate Committee on Public Safety and Military Affairs will meet this afternoon, and its agenda includes a trio of eye-popping gun control bills designed to curtail the right to keep and bear arms.
SB 2720 doesn’t have one of those cutesy titles like “Keep Hawaii Safe From Scary Black Rifles” (at least as of yet), but it should be called the Gun Maker Extortion Act. The bill would require any firearms company that wants to sell its products in the state to pay into something called the “Firearm Injury Restitution Fund” and possess a “valid firearm injury cost recovery license.”
Under the bill the Hawaii Department of Heath would be tasked with coming up with “firearm risk categories,” supposedly based on “objective product characteristics and aggregated public-health cost data.”
Each risk category shall be assigned a contribution rate reflecting its proportional share of statewide firearm injury costs. All firearm manufacturers participation in the same risk category shall be subject to the same contribution formula, applied uniformly. Contributions shall be calculated prospectively and may be capped based on a reasonable percentage of in-state sales revenue, as determined by rule.
This is similar to legislation in Illinois called the Responsiblity in Firearm Legislation or “RIFL Act,” though the Illinois bill would require gun companies to pony up cash based on their market share, not “risk category. In both cases, though, this is a blatant attack on the firearms industry in an attempt to hold companies financially responsible for the criminal misuse and negligent handling of their firearms.
No other industry is subject to this kind of nonsense. Alcohol companies aren’t paying into any kind of fund in Hawaii (or any other state) to cover the cost of drunk driving or alcohol abuse, for instance. This is just a backhanded way of restricting the availability of firearms in Hawaii, as well as extorting those companies who want to continue offering their products to Hawaii customers.
SB 433 would re-impose the ban on open carrying non-firearm arms that was repealed less than two years ago in response to lawsuits.
After legalizing open carry of non-firearm weapons to moot various federal lawsuits, a new bill in Hawaii would re-ban it unless you can prove after being arrested and charged “that the specific weapon…is currently in common use in this country for lawful self-defense purposes” pic.twitter.com/hJYCeb7wLB
— Rob Romano (@2Aupdates) February 1, 2026
This is nutty on several different levels. First, SCOTUS has said that self-defense isn’t the sole reason for the Second Amendment, which also protects other lawful activity with arms. Someone may carry a knife in a sheath on their belt for work purposes, but under SB 433 they could be arrested and charged with a crime for doing so. The Second Amendment Foundation’s Kostas Moros provided an even more basic reason why the bill is legally untenable.
Void for vagueness.
There is no way to “prove” common use. Some courts even deny the most common rifle in the country is common!
This would be like saying “we ban all speech unless you can prove it is political speech and not obscene.”
Hawaii legislators are both especially… https://t.co/t49N0KO5qe
— Kostas Moros (@MorosKostas) February 1, 2026
The Hawaii Firearms Coalition has also released its testimony ahead of today’s hearing.
Testimony of Hawaiʻi Firearms Coalition
In Opposition to SB433
Hawaiʻi Firearms Coalition submits this testimony in opposition to SB433 on behalf of its members.SB433 raises serious constitutional concerns under the Second Amendment and would reverse statutory reforms enacted…
— Hawaii Firearms Coalition (HIFICO) (@hificoorg) February 1, 2026
The last gun control bill that will be heard in committee today seems almost harmless compared to the first two. SB 2503 appropriates money from the state’s general fund to the department of law enforcement for “buyback” programs, including at least two compensated confiscation events in each county annually. As of right now SB 2503 doesn’t have a price tag, but it will at least be hundreds of thousands of dollars… and could easily run into seven figures.
There’s no evidence that compensated confiscation programs reduce crime, suicides, or accidents involving firearms. This is just another way to reduce legal gun ownership in the state at the expense of taxpayers.
Hawaii’s anti-gun legislators aren’t happy about the prospect of the state’s “vampire rule” for concealed carry being struck down by the Supreme Court, and they’re lashing out at gun owners and Second Amendment supporters through bills like these. I’m sure Hawaii’s small but vocal 2A community will turn out in opposition to these bills, but I’m not all that optimistic that enough lawmakers will listen to scuttle these bills before they become bad laws.
Editor’s Note: The radical left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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