Report Title:

Firearms

Description:

Provides that use of nonlethal firearm does not constitute deadly force. (HB2818 HD2)

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

H.B. NO.

2818

TWENTY-FIRST LEGISLATURE, 2002

H.D. 2

STATE OF HAWAII

 


 

A BILL FOR AN ACT

 

relating to firearms.

 

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF HAWAII:

SECTION 1. Section 134-1, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended to read as follows:

"§134-1 Definitions. As used in this chapter, unless the context indicates otherwise:

"Acquire" means gain ownership of.

"Antique pistol or revolver" means any pistol or revolver manufactured before 1899 and any replica thereof if it either is not designed or redesigned for using rimfire or conventional centerfire fixed ammunition or is designed or redesigned to use rimfire or conventional centerfire fixed ammunition that is no longer manufactured in the United States and is not readily available in the ordinary channels of commercial trade.

"Assault pistol" means a semiautomatic pistol which accepts a detachable magazine and which has two or more of the following characteristics:

(1) An ammunition magazine which attaches to the pistol outside of the pistol grip;

(2) A threaded barrel capable of accepting a barrel extender, flash suppressor, forward hand grip, or silencer;

(3) A shroud which is attached to or partially or completely encircles the barrel and which permits the shooter to hold the firearm with the second hand without being burned;

(4) A manufactured weight of fifty ounces or more when the pistol is unloaded;

(5) A centerfire pistol with an overall length of twelve inches or more; or

(6) It is a semiautomatic version of an automatic firearm;

but does not include a firearm with a barrel sixteen or more inches in length, an antique pistol as defined in this section or a curio or relic as those terms are used in 18 United States Code §921(16) or 27 Code of Federal Regulations 178.11.

"Automatic firearm" means any firearm that shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily modified to shoot automatically more than one shot, without a manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger. This term shall also include the frame or receiver of any such firearm, any part designed and intended solely and exclusively, or any combination of parts designed and intended, for use in converting a firearm into an automatic firearm, and any combination of parts from which an automatic firearm can be assembled if the parts are in the possession or under the control of a single person.

"Chief of police" means the chief of police of the counties of Hawaii, Maui, Kauai, or the city and county of Honolulu.

"Crime of violence" means any offense, as defined in title 37, that involves injury or threat of injury to the person of another.

"Electric gun" means any portable device that is electrically operated to project a missile or electromotive force. It does not include any electric livestock prod used in animal husbandry and any automatic external defibrillator used in emergency medical situations.

"Firearm" means any weapon, for which the operating force is an explosive, including but not limited to pistols, revolvers, rifles, shotguns, automatic firearms, noxious gas projectors, mortars, bombs, and cannon. It does not include any lesslethal firearms used by law enforcement authorities in the performance of their official duties.

"Firearm loaded with ammunition" and "loaded firearm" means a firearm with ammunition present within the firing chamber, revolving cylinder, or within a magazine which is inserted in a firearm.

"Fugitive from justice" means any person (1) who has fled from any state, territory, the District of Columbia, or possession of the United States, to avoid prosecution for a felony or to avoid giving testimony in any criminal proceeding or (2) who has fled from any country other than the United States and is avoiding lawful extradition back to that country.

"Lesslethal firearm" means any firearm or firearm loaded with ammunition that uses ammunition not intended to be lethal, including but not limited to, rubber bullets, wooden bullets, and bean bag bullets.

"Pistol" or "revolver" means any firearm of any shape with a barrel less than sixteen inches in length and capable of discharging loaded ammunition or any noxious gas.

"Public highway" shall have the same meaning as defined in section 264-1(a).

"Semiautomatic" means the mode of operation by which a firearm uses the energy of the explosive in a fixed cartridge to extract a fired cartridge and chamber a fresh cartridge with each single pull of a trigger."

SECTION 2. New statutory material is underscored.

SECTION 3. This Act shall take effect on July 1, 2050.