Arizona -(Ammoland.com)- On 28 November, 2017, the Honolulu Star Advertiser wrote that the Honolulu Police Department had been sending letters to people that were both registered gun owners and registered medical marijuana users.
The letters ordered the medical marijuana users to turn in their guns.
The Honolulu Police Department has told legal marijuana users who own guns that they must turn in their weapons within 30 days.
In a letter to about 30 medical marijuana card holders on Oahu, the police said “you have 30 days upon receipt of this letter to voluntarily surrender your firearms.” Police have been sending the letters since at least January.
The United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosive issued a letter in 2011 finding that medical marijuana users may not legally possess firearms or ammunition under federal law. The Supreme Court has ruled that states are not required to use their resources to enforce Federal law. It is not clear if Hawaii law prohibits medical marijuana users form possessing firearms or ammunition. Hawaii law requires that a person who applies for a firearms permit must include a release to the police of your medical history. Doctors are required to release any mental health information that is pertinent.
The use of medical databases to confiscate firearms has been controversial. The Honolulu Police have retracted their confiscation letter in order to study the issue.
The department said that it won’t ask medical marijuana patients to give up their guns while it consults with other government agencies and reviews recent court rulings.
“This is a new area of concern for cities across the country, and we in Honolulu want to develop a policy that’s legally sound and serves our community,” said new Police Chief Susan Ballard in the release. “Formulating the policy will take time, but we want to do it right.”
Carl Bergquist from Drug Policy Forum of Hawaii, an organization that advocates for the legalization of marijuana, said Tuesday he wonders why the agency is going to continue denying gun permits to medical cannabis license holders.
“The denial in the first place doesn’t seem to be based on any particular sound policy reasoning,” Bergquist said.
The Honolulu police are currently refusing to grant permits for the possession of guns to those who are medical marijuana users.
Hawaii is one of the few states that require all new firearms in the state to be registered with the police. You have to apply to the police to purchase a handgun. If you are approved, the permit to purchase is good for 10 days. Permits to purchase long guns are good for a year.
Long guns owned before July 1, 1994 are grandfathered and need not be registered. Any firearms transfers in the state since 1994 are required to go through the registration process.
While Hawaii has a law to permit the carry of firearms in public, in practice, permits are only issued in very rare circumstances. In some years, no permits to carry have been issued to any person other than those who can show a permit is necessary as a circumstance of employment, such as a security guard.
Hawaii is in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which has upheld several infringements on the Second Amendment.
2017 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.
About Dean Weingarten:
Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of constitutional carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and recently retired from the Department of Defense after a 30-year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.
If what you say about federal laws having precedence over state laws is true, then how come states routinely write, and enforce laws that contradict federal laws that protect second amendment rights? How was it that this double standard routinely works to the detriment of the citizen?
IF we are going to continue down this path of firearms registration we need to seriously require all journalists are registered as well. Then you must register your faith to ensure your safety of worship. Count me in…
“Hawaii law requires that a person who applies for a firearms permit must include a release to the police of your medical history. Doctors are required to release any mental health information that is pertinent”.
Amazing.
Since the use of marijuana, medically or otherwise, violates Federal law, regardless of state laws to the contrary, marijuana users are prohibited persons under Federal law. Therefore (and I hate to say this), Hawaii officials are acting legally.
no they are not. State gummits cannot enforce federal laws. Go talk to the folks inn Arizona who tried to enforce federal immigration laws. Feds shut them down on that basis. The legislature of Hawaii could enact a law doing that, making MJ users disqualified from owning guns. But they’ve not done. I think a strong case could be made to end the requirement that a person’s medical records MUST be turned over to the state.. loikely a violation of the federal HIPPA laws, medical privacy and all that nonsense. But hey use it if its there. There is likely… Read more »
State governments may not enforce federal law, but they have to abide by it. If a state ignores provisions of federal law, they are breaking the law, and the Constitution specifically states that the federal statutes have precedence over state laws.
Are they actually enforcing federal law, or are they enforcing a state law that parallels federal law?
If what you say about federal laws having precedence over state laws is true, then how come states routinely write, and enforce laws that contradict federal laws that protect second amendment rights? How was it that this double standard routinely works to the detriment of the citizen?
‘The right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed upon,’ and it makes no qualifications – or disqualifications – for people who do, or do not smoke marijuana. Marijuana wasn’t even illegal in the United States until the Great Depression, when it was outlawed as a means of driving Hispanics back across the border into Mexico in order to create openings in farm labor for out of work Anglos. When the second amendment was written marijuana usage was not illegal, it was not even an issue, nobody cared. Therefore the second amendment preempts any federal marijuana laws. It’s… Read more »
Here I thought the drug of choice for all the creeps that snap their cap and go on a killing rampage was pcp. I mean in my whole life I have never heard of anybody smoking weed weather one joint or half pound. weed mellows a person out. You could probably get old slik willie to tell you that behind closed doors but that’s right he didn’t inhale. Or to get a better answer ask the other willie that’s always…….. on the road again.
If that is the case, and MJ is so harmless, then why do they not allow people using medical MJ to own firearms? That whole concept confuses me. Cars are dangerous. So should medical users not be allowed to own cars? Gas stoves could be dangerous too.
Another example of Mr. Weingarten’s fine work.