On June 2, Gov. Josh Green signed Senate Bill 1230 into law, imposing greater statewide restrictions on where firearms may be carried. While the legislation is a welcome step in the right general direction, for one population of individuals, Hawaii has become a lot less safe as a result.

Intimate partner violence is prevalent within military populations. One study by CBS found that from 2015-2021, roughly 100,000 incidents of domestic abuse were reported to the military.

In 2019, there were approximately 52,000 active duty, reserve, and guard members serving in Hawaii — about 3.6% of the state population.

The Domestic Violence Action Center, a local nonprofit committed to assisting victims of intimate partner violence, reported that military couples comprise roughly 10% of the organization’s caseload.

While anecdotal, these numbers seem to indicate that military populations are overrepresented in statistics on intimate partner violence (IPV). This notion was corroborated in a paper published by the National Library of Medicine, which cited several studies suggesting that IPV is more prevalent in military populations.

While military and local law enforcement can address discrete incidents of abuse, the more sustainable legal solution for victims of IPV is to file a petition with the family court for a temporary restraining order, which can then be converted into a longer-term order for protection.

Before a judge may issue a longer-term order for protection, the respondent in these cases must be given the opportunity to contest the allegations in the original petition. While trial is an option, oftentimes, these cases end up settling.

The benefits of settlement include the guarantee of an additional layer of protection from contact for both the petitioner and the respondent, elimination of the risk of retraumatization of the petitioner, and elimination of the risk of a judge finding on the record that acts of abuse were in fact perpetrated by the respondent — a finding that could potentially harm the respondent’s case in other pending legal proceedings, e.g., custody and criminal matters.

Hawaii Revised Statutes Section 134-7(f), which limits the rights of individuals restrained by protective orders to “possess, control, or transfer ownership of any firearm” originally contained language wherein a restrained individual, after showing good cause to a judge, could receive an exemption from firearms prohibitions.

This exception was often used by members of the military whose careers would effectively end without legal access to firearms. SB 1230 amended Section 134-7(f), removing the language allowing for good cause exemptions.

The changes to HRS 134-7(f) have created a situation where military respondents who may have originally been willing to settle, can no longer do so lest they risk their entire career.

In addition to preventing military couples from taking advantage of all of the aforementioned benefits, I would argue that the changes in the law put victims in these relationships into an overall much more dangerous situation.

The National Institute of Justice has created a screening document with several questions that first responders can use to assess the “lethality” of an abuser—that is, the level of risk that a victim will experience fatal IPV in a given relationship.

These questions are “based on the best available research on factors associated with legal violence by a current or former intimate partner.”

One of these questions reads: “Is he/she unemployed?” The reason that this question is relevant is because a person with a job or career is a person who stands to lose something from breaking the law.
Imagine a situation where an individual’s wife leaves him and takes their kids. While one aspect of his life has fractured, he can still derive value from his career.

The effect is even more pronounced for servicemembers for whom service itself is often core to their personal identity.

Amend The Law

The practical effect of the change in the law is to put judges into a situation where they have to choose between keeping a victim safe but potentially at much higher risk for fatal violence or denying any legal protection to a victim at all.

The counterargument is that taking away the respondent’s access to firearms lowers his lethality rating more than the increase in risk caused by taking away his livelihood. The problem with this is that there is a disconnect between the law in theory and the law in practice.

While restrained individuals are legally prohibited from possessing or controlling firearms, the legal system largely relies on the individual himself to voluntarily relinquish his firearms.

Additionally, “ghost guns” are increasingly common in the state, making it much more difficult for the government to know if an individual is actually in possession of a firearm and to prevent restrained individuals from obtaining firearms.

In sum, while preventing restrained individuals from controlling or possessing a firearm may, on balance, make sense for the average respondent, the downsides and potential risks of not allowing exceptions heavily outweigh the benefits in the case of military respondents.

Every good critique proposes a solution to the issue it highlights: 1) The Legislature should roll back SB 1230 to the extent that it amended HRS Section 134-7(f) for the reasons stated above; and 2) the Legislature should empower law enforcement and the judiciary to more actively enforce gun prohibitions by creating laws to streamline the issuance of search warrants or that can provide other forms of suitable relief.

Through careful consideration of the second and third-order effects of future legislation, we can create a Hawaii that is safer for everyone both on paper and in practice.