STAND. COM. REP. NO. 3162

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: H.B. No. 2622

H.D. 1

S.D. 1

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Thirty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2024

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Public Safety and Intergovernmental and Military Affairs, to which was referred H.B. No. 2622, H.D. 1, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO FIREARMS,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to appropriate funds to the Department of Law Enforcement for the State's Gun Buyback Program.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Law Enforcement and three individuals.

Your Committee received testimony in opposition to this measure from twenty-nine individuals.

Your Committee received comments on this measure from two individuals.

Your Committee finds that the State's Gun Buyback Program offers residents a safe way to dispose of unwanted or unlawful firearms. Your Committee further finds that the previous gun buyback event was successful and allowed law enforcement officers to properly dispose of nearly five hundred firearms on Oahu. Your Committee believes that an additional gun buyback program event will help reduce firearm-related assaults and suicides, and gun-related accidents involving children.

Your Committee has amended this measure by inserting an effective date of July 1, 2042, to encourage further discussion.

Your Committee notes that the House Draft 1 of this measure contains an unspecified appropriation amount. Should your Committee on Ways and Means choose to deliberate on this measure, your Committee respectfully requests that it considers inserting an appropriation amount of $825,000 for fiscal year 2024-2025.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Public Safety and Intergovernmental and Military Affairs that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 2622, H.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 2622, H.D. 1, S.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Public Safety and Intergovernmental and Military Affairs,

________________________________

GLENN WAKAI, Chair