A 20-year-old man is the first on Oahu to be charged under a new state law that makes threatening someone using a dangerous instrument or simulated firearm a felony.

Timothy Maioho is accused of pointing a BB gun pistol at an elderly woman on Aug. 14 outside the Kapahulu Jack in the Box fast-food restaurant.

An Oahu grand jury returned an indictment Wednesday charging him with felony terroristic threatening. The charge carries a maximum five-year prison term.

Maioho is in Oahu Community Correctional Center unable to post $25,000 bail.

Because a BB gun is not a firearm, Maioho could have been charged with misdemeanor terroristic threatening had it not been for a change in the law that took effect July 20. The change makes it a felony to threaten anyone with a dangerous instrument or a simulated firearm. The change also amended the robbery statute making the use of a simulated firearm the same as using a dangerous instrument.

A firearm is defined in the federal Gun Control Act as any weapon that uses an explosive to expel a projectile, which wouldn’t include air guns like the BB gun.

Local law enforcement agencies since 2009 had been asking state lawmakers to make it a felony when simulated firearms are involved. They say it is getting more difficult to distinguish fake guns from real firearms and that there has been an increase in the use of simulated firearms in robbery and terroristic threatening cases.

The Honolulu Police Department told lawmakers that in the past four years there had been at least 35 robbery and 42 terroristic threatening cases that had to be prosecuted with lower charges because they involved the use of simulated firearms.

Honolulu police arrested Maioho Aug. 14 after a woman reported that he had allegedly pointed a handgun at her in the parking lot of the Jack in the Box restaurant.

The woman, a visitor from the mainland, was in a car with her daughter and granddaughter, said Scott Spallina, head of the city prosecutor’s elder abuse unit. When the woman stepped out of the car she saw someone pointing what appeared to be a handgun at her face from the car parked next to her, Spallina said. The woman ran into the restaurant and called police.

Spallina said when police arrested Maioho, they recovered a BB gun pistol.