My email blast is below. I don't expect anybody to read it but it makes me feel better to write it.
To my Senators;
Please be aware that SB3196, in its current condition, suffers from severe ambiguity, and is a terrible piece of legislation regardless of how you feel about the role of firearms in our society.
1) By defining "assault weapon attachments" as any device capable of being attached to a firearm that is specifically designed for making or converting a firearm into an assault pistol, assault rifle, or assault shotgun, the bill either bans almost everything or nothing, depending on interpretation.
To explain, many non-semiauto firearms have folding stocks, flash suppressors, pistol grips, foregrips, or the other items that would make them an "assault weapon" if they were semiauto. These items could theoretically be removed from the non-semiauto gun and placed onto a semiauto-gun... So... Would anybody who owns these devices be breaking the law? Would lever- or bolt-action guns be illegal simply because they are fitted with components that could be considered "assault weapon attachments"?
Or does "specifically designed" mean that nothing would count as an "assault weapon attachment" as long as it had a single other use other than being installed on a semiauto weapon? Because then nothing would be an assault weapon attachment.
It is Schrodinger's language that'd simultaneously means nothing and everything.
2) SB3196 also seeks to change the "assault pistol" test from allowing one listed characteristic to allowing NO listed characteristics. Those who originally drafted this language were making an effort to avoid banning firearms like specialized target pistols just because they were too big or had their magazine in the "wrong place". By changing the "one" to a "zero", this bill would turn the original legislative intent on its head, and would ban a great number of specialized firearms that were originally particularly exempted because they had no practical criminal use. (There is also a further matter of ambiguity regarding what "a semiautomatic version of an automatic firearm" is, which has always been a point of contention, but would now be more pertinent since they'd be specifically banned. eg Would all Glocks now be illegal, just because somebody somewhere has a fully automatic version of a Glock?)
3) SB3196 also seeks to ban 50 caliber rifles regardless of which 50 caliber cartridge they're using; there are reasonable hunting calibers that would be banned by this. Federal law already regulates calibers above .50, so this bill seeks to arbitrarily set the allowable limit to .4999, and there is no sound logic in this. There is nothing that a 50 caliber rifle can do that a slightly smaller rifle couldn't; various jurisdictions such as California have passed similar legislation, which has spurred development of not-quite-50 caliber rifles.
4) The "assault weapon" definitions themselves look familiar because they are copy-and-pasted legislation that is so firmly rooted in the 80's that it's embarrassing. Bayonet mounts do not plague our communities. Some specific guns listed don't even practically exist, and not only does legislating-by-name create a whack-a-mole scenario similar to legislating-by-caliber, but this particular game has been going on for decades, and the included list is at least a little ridiculous if you much know about guns. (And it's recurrently evident while reading through this bill, that whoever assembled it does not, in fact, know much at all about guns.)
I hope you find these points sufficient to vote NO on SB3196, without needing to rehash the perennial rationale regarding the role of firearms in our society. Which, to summarize:
• Humans have a fundamental right to self-defense;
• A corollary to that right is the right to possess and practice with a weapon useful for self-defense, for what use would be a right if you were only granted it the moment you had need of it?
• The right to self-defense does not cease to exist simply because you are attacked by a certain number of assailants;
• Law enforcement has the same right to self-defense as any other citizen; if our police carry or have access to a weapon, then that weapon must have a reasonable and legal use-case in our community;
• Section 17 of the Hawaii Bill of Rights, the 2nd Amendment of the US Constitution, and the state and federal laws that place a large percentage of residents into the unorganized militia, exist for the hard times rather than the easy times;
• The "security of a free state" can and has been threatened not only by foreign governments, or corrupt local governments, but also by organized crime, religious fundamentalists, domestic or international terrorism, angry mobs motivated by hatred or vigilante fervor, unchecked commercial interests with mercenaries, etc;
• The private possession of firearms, even the mere possibility of privately possessed firearms, serves as a deterrent to those who would threaten the security and stability of our communities; imagine how different the world looks to a bigoted lynch mob, or a rapist, or a strong-armed racketeer wanting to extort protection money, if they know that their targets are incapable of defending themselves.
• Countries invest money into their defense industries in hope they'll never need the weapons and battle plans they develop; this theory of deterrence is little different on the personal level; is it more logical to hope you never need to fire the gun you do have, or to hope you'll never need the gun you don't have?
We live in a privileged era, or perhaps at the tail end of one. Mass gun violence is a terrible blight. The atrophy of our social communities, the destruction of our natural world, and the nihilism of our politics is also terrible. But ambiguous law that creates more questions than answers is no solution. Banning pistols or rifles for being too physically large is no answer. Putting a list of guns featured in Schwarzenegger movies into the HRS is no answer.
Please oppose SB3196;
Thank you for your time;