That draconian Hawaii Knife Ban bill, SB 433, has been stopped, failing to receive a hearing by deadline! Knife Rights Director of Legislative Affairs, Todd Rathner, flew to Hawaii and lobbied at the Capitol, explaining to Senators just how badly this proposed bill would impact ordinary Hawaiians. SB 433 would have absolutely banned carry, open or concealed, of most knives, and all knives in many public places in Hawaii!
We are very appreciative of the support we received from a number of our good friends in Hawaii. Thanks, also, to all the Hawaiians who responded to our call for assistance and contacted their legislators or helped Todd make contact with Senators. We’d like to especially thank Todd Yukutake, Co-Founder of the Hawaii Firearms Coalition, and also Knife Rights member Sam Mitchell who shepherded Todd around to numerous meetings with Senators at the Capitol.
Together we stopped this terrible bill from moving, a huge victory for all Hawaiians. This is the twelfth anti-knife bill that Knife Rights has stopped. Stopping a bad bill is almost more important than repealing bad knife laws. A knife ban bill passed sets an awful precedent that other states might follow. We definitely can’t stand for that and with your continued support Knife Rights will always step up for the fight!
Background:
Only months after celebrating the repeal of Hawaii’s bans on butterfly, switchblade and gravity knives, and more, legislators introduced SB 433 that would absolutely ban carry, open or concealed, of most knives, and all knives in many public places in Hawaii!
The proposed bans were unquestionably unconstitutional under the Bruen Second Amendment precedent, but the Ninth Circuit just gave another middle finger to the Supreme Court’s guidance. As you can read below or at this link, the en banc court essentially upheld the vacatur of the panel decision that voided Hawaii’s original butterfly knife ban on Second Amendment grounds. This leaves Hawaii free to once again ban knives.
While the bill appeared to carve out an exception for butterfly knives and switchblades, which might seem like a good thing and a boon to those making them, in reality it would have created one of the most egregious and far-reaching knife bans ever. The bill added “bladed weapons” to Hawaii’s sweeping firearms bans, which would have been, in fact, expanded in this bill.
One of the worst aspects of the bill was its vagueness. As written, nobody, not a resident, not a police officer, not a prosecutor, could possibly look at the proposed statute and know for sure what is a “bladed weapon” that is being banned. This is fundamentally unconstitutional and leaves the law open for law enforcement and prosecutorial abuse. Terms that capture everyday tools carried daily by the public for perfectly lawful uses should be defined crisply and clearly to provide fair notice as required by longstanding law.
Read the whole thing at KnifeRights.org
Read the full article here
