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In the four years since �Ჹ�ɲ���ʻ�� made it a felony to manufacture or possess unserialized parts used to create firearms, the number of ghost guns that police are recovering has increased dramatically. 

Honolulu police reported 68 cases involving a ghost gun in the first 10 months of 2024 alone — a nearly 120% increase from that same period the year before, according to data presented to lawmakers in February.

Yet not a single person in Honolulu has been charged for possessing these untraceable weapons, which pose a threat to the state’s strict gun regulations and low gun violence rates. 

Prosecutors say they have pursued other firearms charges against people caught with ghost guns, but that the current law — written to deter people from obtaining and manufacturing black market weapons — is unusable because it doesn’t apply to already-assembled guns and requires them to prove that someone intended to build an unregistered gun. 

This stands in stark contrast to prosecutors on neighboring islands, who have successfully used the law to go after ghost guns and who view it as a valuable tool. More than 50 people have been charged in �Ჹ�ɲ���ʻ�� and Maui counties since the law was enacted in 2020.

The lack of prosecutions in �Ჹ�ɲ���ʻ��’s biggest county came as a surprise to lawmakers who crafted the law in 2020 to crack down on ghost guns and patch holes in the state’s regulation of untraceable weapons. 

“It’s the first time I’ve heard of anything,” Sen. Chris Lee, one of the bill’s sponsors, told Civil Beat. “It raises a bunch of questions about what the nature of the cases are, and what’s different between Honolulu and the other islands.”

The disparities in enforcement illuminate both gaps in the existing law and the challenges police and prosecutors face in curbing the proliferation of unserialized weapons.

More needs to be done, prosecutors and police agree.

“This ghost gun thing,” Honolulu Police Department Lt. Ernest Robello told lawmakers last month, “is just out of control.”

Differing Interpretations Of The Law

Around 4 a.m. on Christmas Day in 2022, police responded to a call that someone had brandished a weapon before driving off through Ala Moana in a silver Mercedes-Benz with a crushed passenger door.

When police located and searched the driver, John Cristopher Caicedo, they found a P80 semi-automatic handgun inside his right pant leg pinned up against his calf. The magazine held two .22 caliber bullets.

The gun had no serial number, according to police reports. Caicedo did not have any firearms registered in his name. 

Caicedo was arrested for illegally possessing unserialized firearm components and carrying a gun and ammunition without a license, both felonies with a maximum sentence ranging from five to 10 years. He also picked up a criminal contempt offense related to a prior arrest.

He pleaded no contest to improperly carrying ammunition and received three days in jail with credit for time served. The prosecutors declined to charge him for unlicensed carry of a gun because the firearm didn’t work.

But he wasn’t prosecuted for having a ghost gun.

�Ჹ�ɲ���ʻ�� has positioned itself at the forefront of tackling cases like this. It’s one of only 15 states that prohibits ghost guns.

Lee said lawmakers wanted to do something about people buying parts that, with a few screws, can become a working firearm. The 2020 bill made it a class C felony to manufacture, purchase or obtain firearm components with the intent of assembling a weapon without a serial number.

“Up until that point, there wasn’t a clear path to be able to prosecute those kinds of incidents,” Lee said.

On Oahu, it hasn’t worked.

Between April 2021 and January 2025, Honolulu police arrested 33 people for illegal possession of unserialized gun parts. In every case, prosecutors declined to charge them under the ghost gun statute, according to arrest records and court data analyzed by Civil Beat.

Since the law was enacted, �Ჹ�ɲ���ʻ�� County prosecutors charged 42 people for possessing unserialized gun parts and Maui County prosecuted 17 people for violating the law. There were no cases in �����ܲ�ʻ��, but prosecutors say that’s because the county has so few ghost gun arrests. �Ჹ�ɲ���ʻ�� County prosecutors did not respond to interview requests. The Honolulu Prosecutor’s Office provided information for this story but declined interview requests.

The discrepancy comes down to how prosecutors in different counties interpret the law.

When it was written, the focus was on the steps leading up to the creation of a ghost gun, Sen. Karl Rhoads said.

“Sort of intuitively, you’d say, well, what good is a gun to a criminal if it’s not assembled? So assembly is what we’re worried about,” he said. 

In practice, that has created a problem in Honolulu, where prosecutors argue the law doesn’t allow them to go after people in possession of already-assembled guns and that there is no specific state law that can be used to charge someone solely with having an unserialized gun.

Instead, Honolulu prosecutors interpret the law to require them to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that someone arrested with unserialized gun parts intended to construct an unregistered weapon — an incredibly high bar to pass because a person can deny they intended to build a gun or say they were going to get the parts serialized.

Maui, in contrast, applies a broader interpretation of the law. If police bust someone with an unserialized gun or gun parts, prosecutors are likely to file charges under the ghost gun statute, regardless of whether it’s assembled or not, said Maui Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Ronson Ibarra. 

Successful Prosecutions On Maui

While Ibarra said he can understand why Honolulu prosecutors interpret the law the way they do, that hasn’t stopped his office from charging people under the statute when they are found in possession of a fully assembled ghost gun.

One example is the case of Chaz Yamashita, who was prohibited from possessing a firearm under federal gun laws. Last August, among the charges he pleaded guilty to were multiple counts of possessing unserialized firearm receivers and other gun parts to assemble an untraceable weapon. Ibarra says that shows the law works.

When Yamashita was sentenced, he was required to turn over a long list of guns and ammo, including a green 9-millimeter pistol and an AR-15 — both without a serial number. 

Ibarra also sees the ghost gun statute as a way to work around the limitations of other firearms offenses. To be charged with unlicensed carry of a firearm, or being a felon in possession, the gun has to work. The ghost gun charge does not require that, which gives prosecutors a viable option if other charges can’t stick, said Ibarra.

The ghost gun charge can also be helpful when prosecutors are negotiating plea deals and is sometimes dropped if the defendant pleads guilty to a higher charge with a longer prison sentence, Ibarra said. He also thinks it discourages people from possessing or creating ghost guns. “I do see it by itself as a deterrent,” he said.

While Ibarra does see room for improvement to the law, he said it’s still been a useful tool: “Thus far, it did address ghost guns, for Maui anyway, that led to successful prosecutions.”

‘It’s Never A Standalone Case’

Honolulu police know that prosecutors aren’t using the ghost gun charge. But that hasn’t stopped officers from arresting people for ghost guns, alongside other firearms offenses. 

“Just because we know that the prosecutors will probably decline that case, it doesn’t discourage us from adding that offense into all of our arrests,” said Honolulu Police Acting Major Andre Peters. “Because you never know. There may be some type of circumstance that the particular prosecutor may be able to charge.”

Even though Peters said officers include the charge when they arrest someone with an unserialized weapon, that does not appear to always be the case. Earlier this month, police with an AR-15 style weapon that police said did not have a serial number. Arrest records at the time showed he wasn’t arrested under the ghost gun law.

Police and prosecutors emphasize that it’s not like people are getting away scot-free just because prosecutors aren’t charging them under the specific ghost gun statute.

Usually, people arrested with a ghost gun are also in violation of other firearms laws, like prohibited possession of a gun by a felon or transportation of a firearm without a license.

“It’s never a standalone case. If we only relied on (the ghost gun) charge and it was declined, we would have issues with it because it definitely is a public safety issue,” Peters said. “But because usually, the other accompanying charges are attached, we feel pretty safe that we’re able to arrest and charge these individuals for a firearm.” 

Not everyone busted by Honolulu police with an illegal gun ends up facing charges, however. About 40% of people arrested for a ghost gun along with other felony firearm offenses did not have any gun charges filed against them in state or federal court, according to arrest records and court data analyzed by Civil Beat. The prosecutor’s office declined to comment on specific cases.

Honolulu police and prosecutors also don’t appear to be on the same page about the law’s meaning.

Even though the prosecutors said they can’t bring the ghost gun charge against people in possession of a fully assembled unserialized firearm, police continue to make arrests in those cases. 

“We tack it on anyway. We would rather give the prosecutor’s office more offenses or more charges to tack on, rather than not do it at all,” said Peters.

Efforts To Strengthen The Law

This year, Honolulu prosecutors and police are pursuing two separate fixes that they say will allow them to charge people solely for possessing a ghost gun.

, backed by the state Department of Law Enforcement and Honolulu Police Department, updates an existing law regulating gun storage and transfer, and applies the regulations to gun parts. Any felon found carrying gun parts in violation of this law would be guilty of a class B felony. 

The Honolulu Prosecutor’s Office has also come up with a proposal, , that attempts to close what it sees as gaps in the existing law by specifically outlawing the possession, transfer or sale of already-assembled ghost guns by those who do not have licenses to sell or manufacture firearms.

The bill has the support of other agencies, including the Department of Law Enforcement and the Maui prosecutor. 

Rhoads, the senator who played a role in crafting the original law and now oversees the Senate Judiciary Committee where the bills are being considered, said both proposals will strengthen �Ჹ�ɲ���ʻ��’s ability to crack down on ghost guns.

“The bills that we’re looking at this year, we’re trying to close that loophole and basically just say, if you’ve got the part, then you’re violating the law already,” he said. “You don’t have to assemble it.”

That would put Hawai‘i on par with California, where it an unserialized gun.

Nationally, it’s tough to measure how well any ghost gun laws are working. Enforcement can differ by jurisdiction, often at a county level. Statistics about the number of prosecutions and convictions under ghost gun statutes in other states aren’t readily available. 

But as ghost guns get easier to access, law enforcement in Hawai‘i would like to see stronger laws to meet the moment. 

“The crazy thing is that, for example, you can’t order cigars online, but getting gun parts or almost completed guns — there’s something wrong with that,” said Maui Police Capt. Nelson Hamilton. “I think the state can do something about that. I mean, if they can ban tobacco products from being or sent in the mail, then I think they could probably stop gun parts.”

Civil Beat’s community health coverage is supported by , Swayne Family Fund of Hawai‘i Community Foundation, the Cooke Foundation and .