US activists celebrate loosening of gun laws in Hawaii

Since May, Hawaii's most stringent gun laws have been relaxed. Gun advocates are now demonstratively marching through Waikiki with battle axes or spears. Not everyone is happy about this.

It's normal to grab your keys, cell phone and maybe a cap on an evening walk. Andrew Roberts has also been carrying a battle axe for a few months now. For the chairman of the Hawaii Firearms Association, it's a statement – and a tool to start a conversation about gun laws.

He is a “true believer in the Second Amendment,” says Roberts, referring to the clause that defends the right to bear arms. When he is out and about with a halberd or battle axe, he wants to raise awareness of the rights. “On an average evening walk, I'll probably be stopped two or three times and have a conversation about the gun laws in Hawaii,” explains Roberts.

Court ruling led to turnaround

It has been doing the rounds since May – ever since Hawaii relaxed its strict gun laws in response to a decision by the US Supreme Court. According to the Supreme Court's ruling in Washington in 2022, Americans have the right to carry firearms in public for self-defense. Hawaii then responded this year with a law that basically allowed the open carrying of dangerous or even deadly weapons in public.

Previously, anyone found with such a weapon could be arrested immediately. Hawaii's regulations are one of the country's strengths.

Halberds and samurai swords

At the meeting of his activist group in Waikiki's Kapiolani Park, Andrew Roberts brings his halberd. Others come with samurai swords, one carries a butterfly knife, and a wooden Scottish sword dangles from the hip of a man in a red kilt. The group has come together to march through Waikiki in celebration of Hawaii's new gun laws.

The activists are accompanied by police as they march along Kalakaua Avenue by the sea. Some tourists look twice, but most seem unimpressed by the armed men with the US flag.

“Nobody seemed particularly shocked,” Roberts says. “It's just an opportunity to talk to people about what's going on in Hawaii, to talk about Second Amendment rights.”

However, the new law is not a way to provide a license to carry weapons in public, stresses Hawaii's justice authorities. “The idea that you can simply carry weapons however and wherever you want is simply not correct,” says a statement from the state's Justice Department. There are numerous existing laws and regulations that regulate the use and possession of weapons. These will continue to be enforced. For example, concealed carrying of weapons is still prohibited.

“Cultural attitude does not belong to Hawaii”

Nevertheless, the relaxation of restrictions is also met with incomprehension and resistance from the public. Even if clubs or knives are perhaps not as dangerous as firearms, they do not belong on the streets, says Chris Marvin of the organization Everytown for Gun Safety, which campaigns against gun violence.

“I can certainly understand the self-defense argument,” he explains. “But the cultural attitude we are beginning to adopt is not Hawaii's.” With such laws, “we will become more and more like the mainland, which is full of aggressive, quarrelsome people who are too quick to resort to violence,” Marvin fears.

For some, however, the possibility of openly displaying traditional weapons means less of an insistence on rights or the option of self-defense. They see it as an expression of traditions and access to the culture of the islands. Working with traditional weapons such as the wooden spear that his uncle made is a connection to his Hawaiian roots, says Michael Rice. He also traveled to the march in Waikiki with a spear. “I don't get the opportunity to express my culture very often,” says Rice.

Filipino martial arts teacher Burton Richardson welcomed the relaxation of the restrictions, saying that he was now able to practice and teach with weapons in public parks and emphasized: “In the Philippines, the tradition of knife, stick and sword fighting is an important part of the culture.”

Um Kai, who makes traditional Hawaiian weapons such as spears, daggers and clubs, uses them primarily for ceremonies. However, he finds them rather impractical for defending oneself against attacks in everyday life: “I wouldn't carry a club studded with shark teeth around with me every day for self-defense.”

AP/toko