After hours of considering, approving and rejecting more than half a dozen amendments, the County Council voted Wednesday in favor of a bill prohibiting concealed firearms in certain places.
Bill 220 would, if passed, define certain areas on the Big Island as “sensitive places” where most people would be prohibited from carrying a concealed or unconcealed firearm. Those places would include hospitals and other medical facilities, schools, child-centric areas such as playgrounds and day care centers, religious centers, government buildings and more.
The bill is in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s June ruling in New York State Rifle &Pistol Association v. Bruen, which determined that a New York concealed carry law that required that a person prove “proper cause” before being granted a concealed carry permit was unconstitutional. That verdict also left some room for states and municipalities to establish laws prohibiting guns in sensitive places, so long as those laws weren’t overly restrictive.
The bill already had received public pushback during its journey through the council’s Committee on Parks and Recreation and Public Safety last month, and generated more controversy at the meeting of the full council Wednesday.
The version of the bill presented at the meeting was a second draft of the original bill and omitted some clauses that had been included in the first draft. Most of those dropped clauses returned Wednesday in the form of amendments, each introduced and discussed individually.
Hamakua Councilwoman Heather Kimball, who introduced most of the amendments, said the painstaking process was to ensure that each aspect of the bill is as unambiguous as possible, although the process generated confusion among council members all the same.
Ultimately, three out of the nine amendments discussed Wednesday were approved. Those included:
— an amendment allowing firearms in medical facilities where permission is granted by the facility’s administrator, and in government building parking lots where the firearm is kept in a vehicle, unloaded and in a locked case or with a locked trigger;
— an amendment adding public transit facilities and public vehicles to the list of sensitive places;
— and an amendment adding establishments that serve alcohol to list of sensitive places.
Those three successful amendments were no less hotly contested than the rejected ones, however. An amendment that would have limited the carrying of guns on private property open to the public unless the property owner posted signs explicitly allowing the carrying of firearms was rejected after lengthy debate between council members.
“This flies in the face of agriculture,” said outgoing Kohala Councilman Tim Richards, who said that ranches are often required to be open to the public for hunting purposes, which would necessitate ranch and farm owners to post signs allowing them to carry guns on their own properties. “How many signs? Where do they post them?”
Kailua-Kona Councilwoman Rebecca Villegas disagreed with Richards’ assessment, prompting the latter to call her “dead wrong. She just doesn’t get it.”
Other rejected amendments would have prohibited firearms at any event or gathering that requires county permits, or would have removed a provision in the bill exempting retired police officers from the firearm restrictions.
Public testifiers lambasted the bill.
Resident Jason Blair said the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that “gun-free zones” are unconstitutional and that what Bill 220 proposes are merely gun-free zones with a new name. He added that the bill is a violation of not only the Second Amendment, but also the First and the Fourth, and that the council members who support the bill will not have the county’s protection from a lawsuit regarding the bill, if it passes.
Puna resident Brian Ley said that licensed concealed carriers statistically commit fewer crimes than law enforcement officers, and that drunk driving kills many more people than firearms, particularly in Hawaii.
“If you want to do something about public safety, you should do something about drunk drivers, you should do something about the fentanyl being pushed out there,” Ley said.
But Kimball disagreed.
“There’s this perception that more concealed firearms in more places means more protection, and there’s no evidence for that,” Kimball said, adding that a 2019 study by the British Medical Journal found a correlation between states with looser firearm restrictions and higher rates of firearm deaths, whether accidental, suicidal or homicidal.
Kimball also said the idea that a “good guy with a gun” is needed to stop a gunman is not borne out in real life.
“It happens less than one percent of the time,” Kimball said. “We’re not in a movie, folks.”
The council voted 7-1 to pass the amended version of the bill, which will go again before the council in two weeks for a second and final reading.
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.