2aHawaii
General Topics => Legal and Activism => Topic started by: Tom on January 27, 2014, 05:16:09 PM
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Pulling this out of the legislative update thread, I find this bill curious. Here is the relevant change to HRS 134-3
(c) Each county shall establish an online registration process for registering firearms that generally requires no more than two visits to the respective county police station per registration. Any funds received from county firearm registration fees shall be used to pay for online registration processing costs.
Does anyone understand the "two visits" in this bill? Registration is only one visit right now. Applying for the permit, picking up the permit are the other two. Those sections aren't changed in this bill.
--tom
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Sounds like someone trying to do something good? Maybe? But they don't understand the process?
I don't understand why we register after we pick up the permit. It should be expected that the firearm is transferred and is now my property.
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Does anyone understand the "two visits" in this bill? Registration is only one visit right now. Applying for the permit, picking up the permit are the other two. Those sections aren't changed in this bill.
--tom
I believe the word "registration" as used in the bill, is meant to include all the steps of applying for and acquiring a firearm. If there was no final actual "registration" step, the other steps would be unnecessary (I vote for that).
For handgun acquisitions you must:
1. Go to the police station with the information about the handgun (make, model, caliber, serial number, etc.) and fill out the form to apply for the permit (e.g. waive all your rights to privacy regarding all medical records, etc.).
2. Go to the police station after you have called them on, but not before, the 14th day after applying to see if the permit is ready, and if it is, drive there to acquire it.
3. Go to the police station after you have taken your permit to the person or dealer from whom you are acquiring the handgun, given the permit to them, and taken possession of the gun which you then show to the firearm registration police department personnel who check with their magnifying glass and tape measure the make, model, caliber, serial number, barrel length, etc. If everything matches the info entered on the original permit to acquire information, which then went on the permit to acquire, they then issue you your registration document with that information on it.
Certainly step 2 could be done online: you could just print out the permit to acquire. It certainly wouldn't be an "original" with the county employee signature, and also would be susceptible to easy falsification (once you had a "real" one, electronically altering the data fields would be easy), allowing someone to take a fraudulent document to the seller when one hadn't really acquired a valid permit. The only other thing that could be done online would be step 1, but you would have to sign the form with all the sworn statements (similar to 4473 about disqualifications: not a fugitive, addict, felon, etc.) and waive your privacy rights electronically... which I doubt would be legally valid. So I don't know what step could be electronic and not susceptible to fraud. The simple solution, and the only one that makes rational sense, given that registration information has never been used to solve a crime, is to do away with registration. It has nothing to do with public safety or crime... maybe it's because of the children? :wtf:
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I believe the word "registration" as used in the bill, is meant to include all the steps of applying for and acquiring a firearm.
Maybe, but the part of the law they are amending (HRS 134-3) deals only with registration not the permit to acquire (HRS 134-2)