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Senate committee hears split public testimony on bill to create Office of Gun Violence Prevention
Summary
Supporters told the committee the office is needed to gather cross‑disciplinary data to prevent gun violence; opponents said it duplicates existing work, risks partisan control and lacks firearms‑community input. The committee deferred decision to Feb. 13.
The Senate Committee on Public Safety and Military Affairs heard more than a dozen in‑person and Zoom testimonies for Senate Bill 3040, a proposal to establish a funded Office of Gun Violence Prevention to centralize data gathering and policy development.
Terri Ann Mohadin, a volunteer with the Hawaii chapter of Moms Demand Action, told the committee that better data were needed to understand whether crimes involve licensed owners, unlicensed firearms or ghost guns and to track trends in youth firearm crime. “We need an office of gun violence prevention that can get the needed data to our law enforcement in order to keep us all safer,” Mohadin said.
Opponents argued the new office would duplicate work and could lack oversight. Mike Rice, testifying on Zoom, said commissions and similar entities are often “stacked against guns and lawful gun owners” and accused advocacy groups of “twisting statistics.” Jason Wolford said the measure would create “too much bureaucracy” and exclude voices from the firearms community.
Supporters including Dennis Dunn, who described nearly 50 years of experience working with crime victims, said the office’s value would come from cross‑disciplinary data that helps state agencies and the legislature craft proactive prevention policy. Jay Franzone, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University, urged lawmakers to consider long‑term costs of gun violence, testifying that gun violence already costs Hawaii taxpayers $19,000,000 per year and about $901,000,000 annually when private and public costs are included.
The hearing recorded a broad set of views: committee staff noted 41 written testimonies in support, 77 in opposition and none listed as comments. The chair said the committee would defer decision‑making on SB3040 to Friday, Feb. 13 at 3 p.m. in Conference Room 016 to allow further review and responses from stakeholders.
The committee took no legislative action on SB3040 at this meeting; it remains under review.
