More gun safety must be enacted

Channeling raw emotion into activism resolve, scores of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students are leading an effort to prevent a repeat of the massacre that killed 17 students and faculty last week. Their Florida campus is some 4,800 miles from Hawaii’s shores. But the chilling reality is that what happened there can happen here, or anywhere else in the country.

The fresh perspective of these teens holds potential to stir much-needed change in hearts and minds on the matter of gun control. This emerging generation’s use of social media to spread the word for grassroots engagement will be powerful.

In the Florida tragedy, the suspect — a 19-year-old former student — had a history of behavioral problems that had sounded off repeated warning signs that he was mentally unstable and potentially violent. Even so, he managed to legally purchase a semi-automatic rifle. Since the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, when two teens went on a shooting spree, killing 13 people and wounding 20 more in Littleton, Colo., the nation has witnessed scores of on-campus shootings.

Congress is woefully overdue to put in place common-sense change, such as reinstating a federal ban on military-style assault weapons, strengthening federal background checks for gun purchases and other measures that will better protect the public, especially schoolchildren.

It’s encouraging that the clamor of Florida students and others has apparently caught President Donald Trump’s ear, which could push forward discussion on proposed legislation, such as a bill introduced by U.S. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, three other Republicans and four Democrats in the Senate. It would make significant changes to the national instant criminal background check system. To ensure the database is up to date, the measure would hold federal agencies accountable for failing to add relevant information. It also would establish an initiative to better monitor gun buyers with records of domestic abuse.

On a state level, Hawaii’s gun control laws are among the nation’s strictest. For example, in 2016 Gov. David Ige signed a bill that established the state as the first to enter gun owners into an FBI database that will automatically notify police if a Hawaii resident is arrested anywhere else in the country.

Critics had argued that gun owners shouldn’t have to be entered in a database to practice a constitutional right. Rightly outweighing that concern, though, are matters of responsible gun ownership and community safety, with law enforcement agencies better able to protect Hawaii residents and visitors.

Hawaii lawmakers are now rightly advancing a measure to explicitly ban “bump stocks” similar to the devices used in last year’s massacre of 58 concertgoers in Las Vegas. Senate Bill 2046 would prohibit trigger modification devices that accelerate the rate of fire of a semi-automatic firearm, and would make possession of those gadgets a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

In testimony, some opponents have described the proposal as “overreaching.” But supporters of SB 2046, including the Honolulu Police Department, point out persuasively that for public safety’s sake, there should be a clear ban on modifying firearms that convert them into automatic weapons. The Second Amendment right allowing for gun ownership is constitutional, of course, but it is not absolute without limits.

And in an important and needed show of action Tuesday, Trump signed a memo directing the U.S. Justice Department to propose regulations to “ban all devices” like the rapid-fire bump stocks.

In Washington and other cities, plans are now underway for anti- gun violence demonstrations in coming weeks. It is high time that legislators and voters, who can help shape gun-control laws, listen to the compelling voices from Florida and elsewhere — and take action to further step up safety- focused protections.