State attorney general joining other states in gun law regulations

Hawaii has joined with 11 other states and the District of Columbia to argue in federal appeals court that all states must be allowed to continue to impose their own customized restrictions on firearms.

State Attorney General Douglas Chin announced Thursday that he is joining with the other states in a friend-of-the-court brief at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to support a California law that bans large-capacity magazines for firearms in that state.

Hawaii has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation, and imposed a similar ban on large-­capacity magazines for handguns in 1992.

Each of the states has taken its own approach to firearm regulation, but together the states “seek to protect their governmental prerogative and responsibility to enact and implement legislation that promotes public safety, prevents crime, and reduces the harmful effects of firearm violence,” according to the brief filed Thursday.

Voters in California in 2016 approved Proposition 63, which as of July 1 prohibited anyone outside of law enforcement from possessing “large-capacity” firearm magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition. Public officials there reasoned that large-capacity magazines have been used in mass shootings and other attacks, and banning them would advance public safety, according to the brief.

Opponents argued that confiscating the magazines was a violation of their Second Amendment rights, and challenged the California law in a case called Duncan v. Becerra. Federal District Court Judge Roger Benitez issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting enforcement of the law, and the case now has been appealed to the 9th Circuit.

The federal courts also have repeatedly ruled that states have the power to impose those kinds of restrictions, including the 9th Circuit, according to the states’ filing that Hawaii joined.

“The United States Supreme Court has made clear that just as there are reasonable restrictions on every other constitutional right, there are reasonable restrictions on gun ownership,” Chin said in a written statement. “Such sensible restrictions include allowing states the right to prevent individual ownership of what are — quite simply — weapons of war.”

Harvey Gerwig, president of the Hawaii Rifle Association, said he is unaware of any evidence that shows that bans on high-capacity magazines such as the laws in Hawaii or California have any impact on crime.

“The guys that are the criminals don’t give a damn what the law says,” Gerwig said. “They’re not going to turn them in. They’re going to have them. It just doesn’t make any sense.”