Today, the Senate Public Safety and Military Affairs Committee has scheduled a public hearing on SB 433, a broadly written bill that criminalizes the essential tools used by Hawaii’s hunting community for generations.
Please use the Take Action button to email the committee members and urge them to oppose SB 433. Sportsmen must not be turned into criminals for carrying the tools of their trade.
How SB 433 Impacts Hawaii Sportsmen
SB 433:
- criminalizes essential gear by prohibiting the “open carry” of “deadly or dangerous weapons,” and explicitly includes bladed weapons in that list. This criminalizes the carrying of knives commonly used for dispatching game, as well as bows and spears used in traditional hunting, turning a standard day in the field into a misdemeanor offense.
- does not exempt hunting. As written, the bill’s only real “affirmative defenses” are self-defense or specific methods of transportation (such as in a locked, hard-sided container). There is no clear protection for carrying these tools while engaged in lawful, permitted hunting activities.
- bans “public spaces,” which prohibits these essential tools in state parks and government lands that serve as primary public hunting areas.
Hearing Information and Testimony
The hearing is scheduled for 3 p.m. in conference room 016 and via video conference.
Protect Our Outdoor Way of Life
It is important that you share this critical action email with your family, friends, and fellow sportsmen. Urge them to use the Take Action button to email the committee and ask them to OPPOSE SB 433. There has never been a more crucial time in sportsmen’s history than now to be involved and engaged in protecting our way of life.
If we remain silent, others will shape the outcome. We cannot allow that to happen in the Aloha State. Urge your family and friends to join you and the Sportsmen’s Alliance in the fight against the rising tide of animal extremism and gun control activism. The legacy of hunting, fishing, and trapping depends on our actions today.
The Sportsmen’s Alliance guarantees hunting, fishing, and trapping for the American sportsman now and forever. We’re there when sportsmen need us most. We are the only organization specifically created to protect the individual hunter, angler, and trapper – no matter the threat. We will never compromise when it comes to defending our way of life in the courts, in the legislatures, in the public square, and at the ballot box. We make this promise to the American sportsman: we will never give up and never give in while proudly securing our future against those seeking to destroy our values, beliefs, and traditions. Stay connected to Sportsmen’s Alliance: Online, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
