Honolulu police and state law enforcement officials are hoping a proposed piece of federal legislation will help stop the proliferation of untraceable, homemade firearms in Hawaii.
The so-called ghost guns are firearms made privately and not marked with a serial number. They are almost impossible for law enforcement to trace when used during a crime, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
The Gun Hardware Oversight and Shipment Tracking Act of 2025, aka the “Ghost Act,” would create within the DOJ the Federal Interstate Firearm Parts Reporting System to assist law enforcement officers in “monitoring the shipment or transportation of covered firearm components in interstate or foreign commerce,” according to draft language of the legislation, introduced today by U.S. Rep. Jill Tokuda, D-Hawaii.
The measure would require that five business days before an “entity ships or transports in interstate or foreign commerce a covered firearm component,” the entity must register the shipment or transportation of the covered firearm component by submitting the “name, physical mailing address, phone number or electronic mail address, and the eligible identification number” of the entity and the intended recipient.
Documenting the shipping method, name of the shipper, a list or manifest of items, and the use of registered or certified mail are among the requirements of the proposed legislation.
Any violation of the proposed law would result in a fine and up to a year in federal prison. If the violation involves 50 or more “covered firearm components as part of a single act, commission, conspiracy, or enterprise,” it is punishable by a fine and up to 10 years in federal prison.
State law already bans ghost guns in Hawaii. A measure enacted in 2020 made it a felony to buy, make or import firearm parts for the purpose of assembling guns with no serial numbers. The recently concluded legislative session resulted in further firearms regulation via House Bill 392, which bans ghost guns across the islands. Gov. Josh Green last month signed the legislation, now known as Act 18.
Speaking to reporters after a 3D gun-assembly demonstration by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives at the Honolulu Police Department’s Ke Kula Maka’i training division in Waipahu, Tokuda said the proposed legislation is about public safety and transparency, and that legal firearm owners, manufactures and retailers would not be negatively affected.
“You can have a file downloaded online and print it on a 3D printer, put it all together and you’ve got a machine gun — right now. That’s really what we are fighting here,” Tokuda said. “This is about accountability, this is about traceability. This is something that legal gun owners should embrace because, really, we know the ones that are trying to be untraceable are the ones causing chaos on our streets. This in no way infringes on their abilities and their rights … this is about holding people accountable.
“Let’s not make it easy for people to buy the parts that they need to make (illegal) weapons … endangering law enforcement … killing … innocent lives across this country,” she added. “That’s what the Ghost Act is all about.”
Last year, HPD confiscated 88 untraceable firearms found during criminal investigations through Oct. 31, a nearly 70% increase from the 52 found by officers in 2023, the first year the department started tracking the statistic.
“It’s a great act to help us in law enforcement have an idea about what and who is bringing parts into the City and County of Honolulu and … the State of Hawaii so we as law enforcement can help keep everyone safe on our streets,” said Honolulu Police Chief Arthur “Joe” Logan, speaking alongside Tokuda and Mike Lambert, director of the state Department of Law Enforcement.
Nationally from 2016 through 2021, 45,240 ghost guns taken from crime scenes, including 692 murders or attempted murders, were reported to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives by law enforcement agencies.
But county, state and federal law enforcement have no idea of the true number of homemade weapons that are on the street.
Lambert said that under the proposed federal statute, lists of regulated firearm parts would be shared with law enforcement. Seeing the number of gun kits and firearm parts being shipped to Hawaii, where they are coming from and who is receiving them would help identify people prohibited from possessing guns.
“We actually have no idea about how many ghost guns … homemade weapons, there are (in Hawaii) because these parts … (are) not currently tracked or regulated. We would be able to know … how many of these kits are coming into the state … . Right now we have no clue,” said Lambert, a former HPD major.
“If you are a legal gun owner and you are selling a part to someone … you want to make sure that individual is allowed to acquire that … (and) they are a real person and they are not a felon. For me, as a legal gun owner, I have no problem registering a part to know it’s going to a real person versus I’m sending it out to someone with a fictitious name and they do something terrible with it.”
Ghost guns can be built from scratch or with parts kits, including “buy-build-shoot” kits and 3D printers.
Buy-build-shoot kits are pre-made, disassembled, complete firearms. Video tutorials on YouTube detail how to make polymer handguns or rifles with the same tools hobbyists use for modeling and crafting.
Other instructions online walk viewers though how to build and insert a 10-cent piece of 3D-printed plastic into a personally manufactured AR-15-style assault rifle that allows the weapon to fire automatically.
Skilled ghost gun makers can make an assault rifle with a 3D printer in two to three hours.
