Bills signed into law Tuesday expand the statute of limitation for civil litigation against predators who sexually abuse children, raise the age to buy ammunition to 21 — the legal age to purchase guns in Hawaii — and mandate the state’s law enforcement agencies to hire more women and nonbinary police officers.
Gov. Josh Green said he reserved his final bill-signing ceremony of the year for “the important legislation that aims at keeping people safe.”
• Senate Bill 2601 lengthens the time period by which a civil lawsuit for childhood sexual abuse committed on or after July 1, 2024, may be initiated anytime before the victim turns 50 years old. Previously, a lawsuit had to be started before the victim turned 26.
“On occasion, people do terrible things to young people,” said Green. The governor added it’s often difficult for young victims to remember or to come to terms with the reality of what happened.
“It means they may not be aware enough … to acknowledge that they’ve suffered sexual abuse and then to seek justice,” he said. “Keep in mind that this is not a rare problem. One in five young women, girls, we believe are sexually assaulted at some time in their life or suffer sexual abuse, and up to one in 20 boys.
“And you can rest assured that every single one of those individuals is going to wrestle with trauma for a long time.”
Lynn Costales Matsuoka, executive director of the Sex Abuse Treatment Center at Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children in Honolulu, said her facility treated about 1,000 victims of sex assault in 2023.
“Of those 1,000 clients that we saw, 47% of them were children,” she said. “I provide that stat to you because I hope you are alarmed, like we are. And I hope you find that unacceptable, like we do.”
Under the new law, victims can also sue a public or private legal entity if the person who committed the act of sexual abuse was employed by such an entity that owed a duty of care to the victim.
A number of groups submitted testimony in favor of the new law, including Hawaii Children’s Action Network, Hawaii Health and Harm Reduction Center and the Hawaii State Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
The Hawaii Insurers Council testified in opposition, claiming the measure would negatively impact the availability and cost of liability insurance for those legal entities.
• SB 2845 prohibits the sale of ammunition to individuals younger than 21 and prohibits the possession of ammunition, with some exceptions, by individuals younger than 21.
“It’s incredible that we, as a society, have to ask ourselves if this is OK,” said Green, a longtime emergency room physician. “I’m horrified by gun violence.”
Green said his “heart was broken” when an uncle and a cousin took their own lives with guns. He acknowledged that “was a different circumstance” but added “that was real.”
“Our state finally brings our rules for ammunition in line with our firearm laws,” said April Ching, a volunteer with the Hawaii chapter of Moms Demand Action. “We are grateful for lawmakers’ steadfast support and Gov. Green’s continued commitment to combating the gun violence crisis.”
Written testimony in favor of the bill was submitted by Hawaii County Council Chairwoman Heather Kimball and Councilwoman Jenn Kagiwada.
“In Hawaii an individual must be 21 years old to buy or carry a firearm but there is no current restriction on purchase or possession of ammunition. This bill corrects that deficiency and keeps ammunition out of the hands of minor,” Kagiwada wrote.
“Just as we recognize the importance of age restrictions for firearm ownership, it is equally imperative to extend these protections to the purchase and possession of ammunition,” Kimball wrote.
Opponents included the National Rifle Association and private individuals who submitted 299 pages of written testimony.
“The Second Amendment is not a second class right and should not be treated as such,” testified Daniel Reid, the NRA’s managing director of state and local affairs. “Young law-abiding adults should be free to exercise their constitutionally protected rights and a critical element of the Second Amendment is the ammunition needed for firearms to function.”
Sean Stueber, owner of Stuebs Guns and Ammo in Hilo, said the new law doesn’t change how he does business.
“I was under the impression that 21 was always the age required to purchase ammo,” Stueber said. “I didn’t know rifle ammo could be bought at 18 years old. We’ve just always operated at 21 years old and up for everything.”
• House Bill 2231 mandates the recruitment and hiring of more women police officers as well as nonbinary-gender officers, with a goal of 30% by 2030.
“We have to have these goals. Let’s get there,” Green said. He said the current percentage of women law enforcers in Hawaii is “13%, way below what it should be.”
The state Department of Law Enforcement and Honolulu Police Department both submitted written testimony in favor of the bill, and both agencies said they are committed to increase the numbers of women in their ranks.
The State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers, the statewide police union, supported the measure with reservations about the bill’s “explicit requirement that law enforcement agencies recruit officers from schools of social work to achieve that goal.”
SHOPO President Bobby Cavaco, a Honolulu police lieutenant, said “a mandate that law enforcement agencies must recruit from social work (programs) lends to the impression that the two fields are one when in reality, each one has its own unique and important role to play in addressing public safety and crisis intervention in our community.”
Photojournalist Kelsey Walling contributed to this story.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.