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Kit Yiu, a Honolulu gun dealer and certified firearms instructor, hasn’t sold any guns since the start of the year. 

He’s frustrated because he says a new law that went into effect on Jan. 1 has made it more difficult for people to get permits to purchase guns. The law requires anyone wishing to buy a gun to take a safety course from a newly verified instructor that includes training on mental health and the prevention of suicide and domestic violence.

While Yiu has been re-certified under the new rules and supports safety training, he sees the new requirements as infringing on the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

“It’s going to affect sales,” Yiu said. “Because everybody has to go through a brand new class, and we don’t have enough instructors to teach … They just make it harder and harder for people to have the right to bear arms in the state of Hawaii.”

Others, though, say the law, , which was Hawaii’s response to that expanded gun owners’ rights to carry their firearms, is working as it was intended. The act was signed by Gov. Josh Green in June, but two sections went into effect on Jan. 1, including Section 4, which covers the new training requirements.

“I think it will make things safer,” said Sen. Karl Rhoads, who was one of the introducers of the bill.

On top of setting the new training requirements, the law prohibits firearms from being carried in certain locations, bans guns from being left unattended in vehicles and forbids people from consuming alcohol or other controlled substances while carrying their weapons. 

Training Requirements

Yiu, who owns Kit N Gun in Honolulu, said he was one of the first instructors to be certified by the Honolulu Police Department under the new law after he changed his handgun safety course to cover material on mental health awareness, suicide prevention and domestic violence associated with firearms. Yiu said he had already been an instructor for eight years, but the new rules required him to be re-certified.

He wrote the new parts of the course himself after doing research online and borrowing material from a military firearms safety course. A presentation he shows to his students now includes slides with statistics on mental illness and suicide, local resources for suicide prevention and mental health support and information on temporary restraining orders and state laws prohibiting those charged with domestic violence-related crimes from possessing firearms.

Yiu is in favor of making more training available to those who want to learn, but he doesn’t think it should be mandated. He said the new rules have also impacted his business because no one, even those who took a handgun safety course as recently as last year, can purchase a gun until they take the new course.

There are also a limited number of instructors on Oahu who are certified to teach under the new requirements, he said.

As of Jan. 9, HPD had certified 28 instructors under the new rules, department spokeswoman Michelle Yu said.

Andrew Roberts of the Hawaii Firearms Coalition said he wishes the police department would have been more proactive in getting instructors certified under the new law, a process that didn’t begin until the end of December.

He said he submitted his instructor verification application a few weeks ago but never received a response. When he called to check on the status, he was told he needed to include more questions about mental health and Hawaii’s sensitive places law on the final test he would give to students. 

“When I asked for a list of all the questions they wanted me to ask, they couldn’t provide me one because they said they wouldn’t write the whole test for me,” he said. “It’s creating frustration for instructors that I’ve spoken to.”

Rep. David Tarnas, who worked on the House version of the bill, said the training requirement is an important piece of ensuring that those who possess weapons know how to use them responsibly. He also noted that Act 52 requires anyone who applies for a firearm permit to sign a waiver allowing access for the chief of police to any records that have a bearing on the applicant’s mental health.

“This is all a part of protecting public safety,” he said.

Sensitive Places

Another piece of the law that many Second Amendment advocates disagree with is the part that prohibits firearms license holders from carrying their guns in “sensitive places,” such as schools and public parks, or on private property without prior authorization. 

A District Court judge in August arguing that enforcing the sensitive places law is unconstitutional. The court issued a preliminary injunction barring the state from enforcing the restriction in certain places, including public parks, beaches and bars and restaurants serving alcohol. 

Attorney General Anne Lopez has appealed the matter in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. 

��� think there was a lot of unwarranted concern by some of our legislators that all of a sudden you’re going to have all of these people carrying guns like the Wild West or something,” said Glennon Gingo, who has a background in firearms safety training. “When actually, when you think about the size of our population and the number of permits being issued already, it’s pretty small.” 

Around 1,250 licenses to carry have been approved so far on Oahu, or about 0.1% of the island’s population, according to the Honolulu Police Department. 

For Rhoads, any society with more guns around is a more dangerous one. 

He said he hopes the Legislature will continue to adopt policies similar to those in other countries that have lower rates of gun ownership and fewer gun homicides. 

For example, the U.S. rate of civilian gun ownership was and its gun homicide rate was 4.12 per 100,000 people, according to a 2022 study published by the Council on Foreign Relations. Canada, by comparison, had a lower gun ownership rate of 34.7 per 100 people and a gun homicide rate of 0.5 per 100,000.

Rhoads said he’s planning this legislative session to re-introduce a bill that would with over 10-round capacities. Another bill that has carried over from last year is one that would or rifles with the capacity to fire 50-caliber ammunition or higher. Caliber refers to the internal diameter of a firearm’s barrel. 

But Butch Helemano, who runs Firearms Training Certification School on the North Shore, said more rules and mandatory training requirements only make it more difficult for people to keep themselves safe. 

���n this crazy age that we live in, you have to not put your guard down,” he said. “You have to be able to defend yourself and family. Like in the Wizard of Oz, we’re no longer in Kansas, Toto.”