City Council pair seeks more sites to register guns

City Council members want the Hono­lulu Police Department to look at the idea of allowing gun owners to obtain firearm registrations and permits at the Kapo­lei and Kaneohe police substations to reduce long lines.

Gun registrations and permits are available only at HPD’s main station at South Beretania and Ala­pai streets.

Council members Ron Menor and Kymberly Pine said they introduced Resolution 13-74 after they heard from many gun enthusiasts frustrated by long waits in the registration/permits line that can last four or five hours.

"Doctors, lawyers, pastors have been calling me," Pine said.

Menor said Hawaii County police operate three sites where people can obtain registrations and permits. Hawaii island’s population is only a fraction of Oahu’s, though spread over a larger island.

If the full Council passes the resolution, officials from HPD and other city agencies and community members would assess the cost and effects of providing more sites.

Maj. Thomas Nitta, who heads HPD’s Records Division, which oversees gun registration, said he has neither the staff nor the space at the two substations to add services. The city receives no money from the state to administer gun registrations and permits, he said.

Neither "the Police Department nor the city makes any money from the permitting or registration of firearms," Nitta said. A $16.50 fee goes toward paying the FBI to run a background check, he said.

Nitta said it would take two or three officers and three civilians to staff a new firearm registration station.

While the numbers of gun registration and permit applications went up significantly last year, they have been slowing, Nitta said.

One impending change, making application forms available for printing online, should reduce the amount of time a registrant will need to be at HPD filling out forms, he said.

Harvey Gerwig of the Hawaii Rifle Association said it is "incredibly cumbersome" to register a firearm on Oahu because the process requires three visits. "My belief is that that’s driving what should have been legal firearms underground, and that’s not what we want to see," Gerwig said.

But Gerwig said his organization would not support a suggested $5-to-$10 increase in fees to pay for additional staffing because it is against the HRA’s principles to support registration fees. "Fees to register are a real death knell to the Second Amendment," he said.

Gerwig said the only reason there has been a decrease in registration lines lately is a lack of available handguns and long guns for sale following a sales rush at gun shops at the end of 2012.