They are all idiots. Meaning the Legislators for not going ahead and completing an “environmental impact statement to develop community outreach for the project” for a sport shooting complex. Are they, the Legislators, afraid that the community will respond in a positive way to a shooting range?
Idiots, by the state for failing to provide a lousy $200,000 to gain $600,000 from the feds. In business that would be akin to a profit of some $400,000. Only in politics would one bypass such a gift (that would be considered an F in economics 101).
“Six thousand firearms are acquired by Hawaii County residents alone annually.” Average, in five years, is just a mere 30,000 firearms that have no place to be fired. Equate that to golf, soccer, skateboarding or other sports that all have their designated areas for recreation, none of which grows by 6,000 a year!
The resorts are acting like selfish adolescents with their leader Mufi Hannemann, President and CEO of Hawaii Lodging and Tourism Association, (a fancy term for a lobbyist) the biggest of adolescents. Noise from this proposed shooting park wouldn’t/couldn’t raise a discomfort, particularly a noise discomfort. What a joke that as one is lounging on the beach listening to the mellow voice of the sea that one would be distracted by the very distant sound of a gun above all the noise vibrating off of Queen Kaahumanu Highway — how gauche.
Amateur polls have shown that the resorts would be the biggest beneficiaries, followed by the shops and eateries in the resort areas along with airlines, car rentals, tour operators and on and on when recreational shooters and their accompanying events (NRA convention) convey here on the Big Island. In particular, where would your wife rather attend, a shooting match in Tennessee or Hawaii? Then there are the camp followers like the trade table people (companies like Winchester, Springfield etc.) who pay to have a table of wares (paraphernalia) on exhibit in the lobbies of these soulless hotels. Com’on Mufi, don’t be goofy, man up!
However, most importantly, we have soccer fields, tennis courts etc., where one can beat one’s head into the ground while keeping the children of the streets and teaching them discipline. But we have thousands upon thousands of guns out there and no where for their owners or their family members to become qualified in the use of their guns. No place where a gun owner himself can be taught the discipline of handling a firearm. Nowhere where a father can bond and teach his children the principles of gun ownership. What we have now, today, are thousands upon thousands of untrained owners of firearms. It is nothing but a bomb waiting to blow. So let’s all get smart and make your public servants comply with reason and do their duty for the many thousands of silent firearm owners.
Fact is, more pedestrians (WHT June 26) are killed by cars alone than are killed by guns. Above all, Gov. David Ige should be ashamed of himself for unnecessarily enrolling, without legislative input, your and my records (that is/was for state information only) into the FBI database which will become a source of unintended consequences. There is no federal requirement mandating states to create a gun owners’ list. So why does our state of Hawaii feel compelled to cede our rights to privacy by acting as the “poster boy” for national gun control? Unfortunately, by then, Gov. Ige will have returned to private life, leaving our state to bury its foolishness. It is a proven fact that it is always better to educate than eradicate.
Hugo von Platen Luder is a resident of Holualoa.