Hawaii just became the first state to automatically put all gun owners in an FBI database

Several semi-automatic guns
(Image credit: George Frey/Getty Images)

Hawaii became the first state in the nation to automatically place all gun owners in an FBI criminal tracking database, which will enable the federal government to "monitor them for possible wrongdoing anywhere in the country." From now on, if a Hawaiian gun owner is arrested for any reason, their hometown police will be notified and their permission to own a gun reexamined.

"This bill has undergone a rigorous legal review process by our Attorney General’s office," said Hawaii Gov. David Ige, who signed the bill Thursday, "and we have determined that it is our responsibility to approve this measure for the sake of our children and families."

But critics say the new law is an extreme and invasive measure. "Why are law abiding citizens exercising their constitutional right being entered into a criminal database?" asked Hawaiian Quentin Kealoha in a public comment process about the bill. "Would you enter people exercising their right to free speech into a criminal database?"

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.