So on of my many questions (to present to FIN): has anyone looked at DBET data or other resources for information on how much money visiting shooters/hunters bring into our economy annually? I would like to stress how much money comes in to Hawaii from this group; how this could be adversely affected if the bill gets through, and how much money and time it will "cost" the already overburdened county registration Police depts.

I'm searching through http://hawaii.gov/dbedt/info/economic/visitor-stats  to see if they somehow subset hunters/shooters in their visitors data, but it's a big site.

On the DBEDT visitor statistics tables, I don't see the "Hunting" category separated out.

I only see "Sport Events" or "Pleasure/Vacation", both of which seem kind of broad.

Thanks....I did find these three documents (attached), and was hoping I could somehow say what percentage of money is generated by US visitors from out of state, but the sample size was too small for them to report the out of state percentage (see Table7_58_075908_20130412.jpg attachment).

For this series of documents, only table 7.59 lists a dollar amount generated by hunting,  fishing, propel who did both hunting and fishing, and Wildlife watching. 

The website where these documents were available is: http://hawaii.gov/dbedt/search?SearchableText=hunting   This page gives some text/report to accompany the tables.

Too bad, as it would be nice to say these data suggest several million in expenditures by out of state residents while hunting in Hawaii.  Just can't bring it together from this though.

Anyone willing to share their testimony?  Would like to see the points made...

Anyone willing to share their testimony?  Would like to see the points made...

This is what I emailed my rep last night (still no response).  May not be the best, but at least I contacted my rep. 

Aloha Representative Say,

I am one of your constituents and I am writing you to voice my strong opposition to SB69 Introduced by Senators Espero, Baker, Galuteria, and Green.  While this bill appears to have good intensions, I question the reasoning behind these added restrictions on our 2nd amendment rights and whether the expenditure of our tax money to support these restrictions is justified.

Fingerprinting and picture taking of individuals arriving in Hawaii to register their firearms is akin to treating them as if they were criminals for simply exercising their 2nd amendment rights.  What is the purpose of the picture taking?  At what cost?  Do our elected officials believe that individuals with a criminal background that enter Hawaii will abide by our gun laws?

Section 3 appropriates our tax dollars for a gun buy-back program.  I strongly oppose this as an unnecessary waste of our tax dollars as there is no evidence supporting the efficacy of this type of program.  Do our elected officials actually believe that criminals will sell their illegally obtained firearms in a buy-back program?

While these types of bills appear to have good intensions, they are a violation of the U.S. Constitution as well as the Hawaii State Constitution Article 1 Section 17 which states, “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”  These bills are an infringement of this right.

Representative Say, I urge you to oppose this bill.  Your time and consideration is appreciated.

Sent mine in now. I know it's late at night, but if you guys are reading this, write even a simple line or two stating that you see this as another redundant law or don't see how this will reduce crime. This may seem manini compared to something like all out confisication, but it's winning the little battles that gets them closer to winning the bigger ones. We gotta write, no matter how much we think a bill is dead or has no chance of passing. Can't let them think we're a minority who will keep our mouths shut while everything is stripped away.

HRA may support this bill but I and many others do not.  I submitted my opposition.  IMO ANY MORE INFRINGEMENT is unacceptable.  This is the beginning of the fight, we need to squash all these elitists ideas and designs on our rights, right now.

Is anyone going to testify tomorrow on this bill?  I would love to head over and testify tomorrow but have a conflicting appointment.   

I am particularly bothered by the new requirement this bill introduces, requiring photographing of registering gun owners as though we were criminals getting mug shots taken.

Hope some of you can make it and oppose this horrible bill.