Hawaii

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National Rum Day

August 16, 2023 by

National Rum Day is celebrated on August 16th.

In colonial America rum was the drink of choice. A tax on non-British West Indies produced molasses was a bone of contention between the American colonists and Great Britain. The Molasses Act of 1733 created the tax to try and give molasses from the British West Indies (islands such as Jamaica and Barbados) a leg up over that from the French West Indies. However, the colonists effectively nullified the Act through smuggling of molasses from French and Dutch sources and it was repealed in 1767.

Rum is made from molasses which comes from sugar cane. Spirits such as rhum agricole and the Brazilian cachaca, while similar, are made from fermented sugar cane juice.

Rum or rhum is made around the world. I have bottles of it from Barbados, Jamaica, Colombia, Panama, Martinique, Haiti, and the US (Puerto Rico and US Virgin Islands) in my collection.

There are a number of rums that come from the state of Hawaii. A quick search on the Internet finds rums being distilled on the islands of Oaha, Kauai, Hawaii, and Maui.

As has been extensively reported, wildfires on the last island mentioned, Maui, have left homes destroyed, people killed, and families uprooted. One factor that made the wildfires worse was the decline in sugar cane production which let non-native invasive grasses to flourish. These dry grasses provided an abundance of fuel for the fire. There had been upwards of 36,000 acres of sugar cane grown in the area around Lahaina through the late 1990s. The last sugar cane mill on Maui closed in 2016.

National Rum Day is a good day to remember our fellow citizens in Maui and to help them out. If you want to make donations, here are a couple of non-profits that I trust to spend the money wisely.

The Salvation Army of Hawaii

Catholic Charities of Hawaii

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A Day That Will Live In Infamy Plus 81 Years

December 7, 2022 by 2 Comments

We are now closer to the 22nd Century than we are to the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Imperial Japanese Navy. That thought is somewhat unsettling to me. As I noted last year, by December 7, 1941, my Dad had already been a draftee in the Army for close to a year, my Mom was working in New York City for the British Lend-Lease Office, and my Uncle John allegedly would skip college the next day to enlist in the Navy.

Despite all of this, long-lost letters regarding one of the sailors killed on the USS Oklahoma were returned to a family just last week. They concerned Machinist Mate 2C Lorentz Hultgren whose body was finally DNA identified in 2015. At the time of the letter from 1944, his body could not be identified. He will now be buried with full military honors in the National Cemetery of the Pacific (Punchbowl) early in 2023.

Besides Hultgren, two other sailors were finally identified this past August.

The effort to identify sailors killed at Pearl Harbor continues to this day, 81 years after the attack. 

Two more sailors, Petty Officer Second Class Claude Ralph Garcia and Petty Officer First Class Keith Warren Tipsword — each serving about the USS West Virginia — were identified this past August.

https://www.foxnews.com/lifestyle/pearl-harbor-sorrow-suffered-sailors-mom-revealed-letters-returned-family

Most know that the USS Arizona was never refloated and serves as the final resting place for those killed there. The battleship USS Utah also was never refloated and its remains still lie on the floor of Pearl Harbor.

https://www.ussutah1941.org/uss-utah-memorial.html

The Utah is referred to as the “forgotten ship”. A memorial to it was established in 1972. Adjacent to the USS Utah Memorial is that of the USS Oklahoma. Both are on Ford Island. As of 2022, they are now available to be visited with reservations which was an issue in the past as Ford Island remains an active military facility. The Ford Island Bus Tour can be accessed here.

The USS Oklahoma Memorial was only dedicated in 2007. The video below shows the dedication of the memorial, some of the survivors, and the memorial.

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Democrat State Party Platforms – Hawaii To Iowa

September 19, 2018 by 1 Comment

This is part three of my ten part series on the party platforms of the various Democrat state parties with regard to firearms, gun control, and the Second Amendment. I am publishing these in five state increments. This will probably be the last for this week as I leave in the morning for the Gun Rights Policy Conference as well as AMM-Con.

Hawaii

For a state with very strict gun control laws, the Democrat Party of Hawaii has very little to say about firearms or gun control. And that may be reason as there is little more that they can do without getting even the 9th Circuit to say no. They already require both permits to purchase and the registration of all firearms.

3. MAKE OUR COMMUNITIES SAFER NOW – in schools and on the streets and in our homes (including
advancing gun control measures such as ban on assault weapons and full background checks for all; make
elimination of police corruption a priority; advance restorative justice programs for offenders and oppose
privatization of prisons and provide an effective means of assisting victims of domestic violence).

Idaho

The Democratic Party of Idaho is one of the first states that I’ve researched so far that isn’t calling for a ban on “assault weapons” (sic) or magazine restrictions. They do call for universal background checks. Nonetheless, it is good to see a state that seems to be generally out of step with the gun control lobby.

14. WE SUPPORT THE FULL TEXT OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT: “​A WELL REGULATED MILITIA, BEING NECESSARY TO THE SECURITY OF A FREE STATE, THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS, SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED.”

● We demand universal criminal background checks.

● We demand laws that keep guns out of the hands of convicted domestic abusers.

● We support the rights of hunters and sportspersons in Idaho.

● We support scientific research on gun violence.

Illinois

According to Ballotpedia, the Illinois Democratic Party follows and adopts the national Democrats’ platform. The DPI’s website has no platform on it. That said, it is well known that Democrats in Illinois and especially in Chicagoland tend to be very anti-gun. There have been exceptions with Downstate Democrats but even that is changing a bit. Here is what the national platform has to say on “gun violence” (sic).

With 33,000 Americans dying every year, Democrats believe that we must finally take sensible action to address gun violence. While responsible gun ownership is part of the fabric of many communities, too many families in America have suffered from gun violence. We can respect the rights of responsible gun owners while keeping our communities safe. To build on the success of the lifesaving Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, we will expand and strengthen background checks and close dangerous loopholes in our current laws; repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) to revoke the dangerous legal immunity protections gun makers and sellers now enjoy; and keep weapons of war—such as assault weapons and large capacity ammunition magazines (LCAM’s)—off our streets. We will fight back against attempts to make it harder for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives to revoke federal licenses from law breaking gun dealers, and ensure guns do not fall into the hands of terrorists, intimate partner abusers, other violent criminals, and those with severe mental health issues. There is insufficient research on effective gun prevention policies, which is why the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must have the resources it needs to study gun violence as a public health issue.

I did learn a new acronym reading this – LCAM – which stands for large capacity ammunition magazines. That’s what you and I would call standard capacity.

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Indiana

The Hoosier Democrats take a less restrictive approach to gun control than do their neighbors to the west in Illinois. They make no mention of magazines, “assault weapons” (sic), or even the favorite buzzword of gun banners, commonsense. They do call for universal background checks and closing the non-existent “gun show loophole” among other things.

Close the gun show and terrorist watch-list loophole and ensure every transaction involving the sale
of a firearm includes a comprehensive background check. Strengthen child access prevention laws to
ensure the safe storage of firearms.

Iowa

Iowa Democrats have adopted a whole laundry list of gun control items including a return to may-issue concealed carry, mandatory training, and a ban on open carry along with the usual things. They also want the Dickey Amendment which restricts the CDC from using funds to advocate for gun control repealed. Iowa Democrats also want to ban the private transfer of post-1968 firearms that that don’t have serial numbers. I’m not sure where that came from but I think it is aimed at 3-D printed guns and the like. They also oppose national concealed carry reciprocity (NCCR).

Gun Safety

We support:
340. guardian accountability for minor negligent-gun-access
341. public/private property gun-free zones
342. updated version of the Assault Weapons Ban of 1994, restricting:


a. silencers/suppressors
b. bump-stocks
c. high-capacity-magazines
d. fragmentary-rounds


343. mandatory safety/proficiency training
344. expanding NICS
345. firearm transfer universal background checks
346. registration
347. waiting periods
348. just-cause Sheriff discretion issuing Concealed-Carry
349. mandatory liability insurance for gun/ammunition
owners/sellers/manufacturers
350. GVROA(2017)
351. mandatory reporting lost/stolen firearms
352. reasonable gun-regulation/responsible gun-ownership
353. gun buybacks

We oppose:
354. open-carry
355. Dickey Amendment
356. NCCR
357. private post-1968 firearms transfers without serial numbers

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Gun Tourism….In Hawaii?

September 30, 2013 by 2 Comments

The state of Hawaii has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the country. They require permits to purchase firearms, your guns must be registered, and getting a concealed carry permit is damn near impossible. Despite all of this, Hawaii has a thriving “gun tourism” industry. Susannah Breslin, writing in Forbes magazine, tells of her recent trip to the 50th State.

To be fair, my husband spotted it. We were walking along Kalakaua Avenue in Honolulu, Hawaii, and there, on the bustling-est street in Waikiki, was a shooting range.

“What?” I said, gawking at the Waikiki Gun Club.

I’d come to Hawaii for the beach, the food, the weather. Apparently, some people come for the firearms.

They’re gun tourists, let’s say….

In fact, as you walk down Kalakaua, you’ll see guys holding signs for shooting ranges and wearing T-shirts with targets on them. It’s their job to bring tourists to the smattering of shooting ranges in the area. One flyer offered “REAL GUNS” and “FACTORY AMMO” at the SWAT Gun Club. Another displayed the different firearms — from a 9-mm Beretta to an AK-47 — you could shoot at the Hawaii Gun Club.

It was like Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, California — except for instead of burning incense and selling hemp necklaces, they were hawking the fruits of the Second Amendment.

According to Lynn Selman of the Royal Hawaiian Shooting Club, the bulk of their customers are from overseas. She estimates that about 60% are Japanese, 30% are either Australians or New Zealanders, and the remaining 10% are locals or mainlanders. The club itself is located in the Royal Hawaiian Center along with high-end stores like Cartier, Hermes, and Fendi.

Why this many Japanese? It is because gun laws in Japan make owning a gun damn near impossible and because they’ve seen guns in all the action movies. Having seen them, they want the opportunity to shoot them because they aren’t going to get that chance at home.

While it is rather sad that these tourist have to come to Hawaii to get a chance to shoot, I’m glad that they are taking advantage of it. The more the Japanese and Australians and New Zealanders see that shooting can be fun, hopefully it will mean they will start pushing a little bit more at home for less restrictive gun laws. At least one can hope that.

Read the whole article by Breslin. It is interesting. It also is a warning of what the future might look like if we don’t work to preserve our Second Amendment rights now.

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Gunning For Noxious Weeds

July 25, 2013 by

The Hawaiian islands are having trouble with an invasive weed that is shading out natural plants and causes erosion.

The weed in question is miconia, a plant that has infested much of the Big Island and has been trying to gain a foothold on Oahu, Maui and Kauai. Miconia’s large leaves can block out sunlight for smaller plants, and its shallow root systems can increase erosion. A single miconia plant can produce eight million seeds a year.

“Miconia is the number one weed problem in the state of Hawaii that most people don’t know about because it’s impacting areas that people don’t have access to,” Leary told Hawaii News Now in an interview from the UH Maui Agricultural Center in Kula.

The solution developed by conservation scientists from the Hawaii Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Management is called Herbicide Ballistic Technology or HBT. In layman’s terms, they are using a paintball gun with special paintballs filled with herbicide to kill the miconia.

The scientists from NREM take to the air in helicopters searching for the miconia and shoot it with the herbicide-filled paintballs. It has been likened to helicopter hunting for feral hogs in Texas. It appears that they have have some significant success according to Dr. James Leary of the University of Hawaii.

“We have protected over 3,000 acres, eliminating 5,000 miconia targets, and reducing what we call incipient populations, or satellite populations, by 80 percent,” he said.

Who would have ever thought that paintball guns could be put to such important conservation use.

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New Second Amendment Case From Hawaii

August 25, 2011 by 2 Comments

A challenge on Second Amendment grounds to Hawaii’s concealed carry laws has been launched by Chris Baker and the Hawaii Defense Foundation. They are suing the State of Hawaii, the City and County of Honolulu, and the Honolulu Police Department on Second and Fourteenth Amendment grounds.

Hawaii is one of those may issue states like New Jersey where it damn near impossible to obtain a permit. The suit is also challenging the ban on non-lethel items such as stun guns.

HONOLULU POLICE CHIEF AND STATE OF HAWAII SUED FOR SECOND AMENDMENT VIOLATIONS

For Immediate Release: 8/23/2011

Honolulu, HI – The Hawaii Defense Foundation’s founding director and president, Christopher Baker, has filed a lawsuit against Honolulu Chief of Police Louis Kealoha, the Honolulu Police Department, the City and County of Honolulu, the State of Hawaii, and Governor Neil Abercrombie in connection with civil rights violations of the Second and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States constitution.

The complaint filed in the United States District Court for the District of Hawaii by attorneys Richard Holcomb, Alan Beck, and Kevin O’Grady alleges that Hawaii’s license to carry statute and various other firearm regulations are unconstitutional. State law mandates that citizens may be provided licenses to carry only in “exceptional circumstance” or “where a need or urgency has been sufficiently indicated,” all at the discretion of the county’s Chief of Police. The complaint asserts that this language violates the Second Amendment, which secures the right of all responsible, law-abiding citizens to bear arms for the purpose of self-defense. Additionally, the complaint also addresses the use of non-lethal tools for self-defense such as electric guns, which are banned in in Hawaii.

“The Second Amendment protects the right to self-defense. Everyday around the islands good people are robbed, assaulted, raped, or in the worst cases murdered. It’s simply a matter of physics, the Police can’t be everywhere to stop criminals from committing violent acts. We must be allowed to carry the tools that give us a chance to protect ourselves from harm,” says Chris Baker. “We want criminals to have to think about the consequences of attacking someone,” he continued, “but right now, nothing serves as a deterrent to them – the odds are in their favor.”

 The only criticism I might have about their suit is that it isn’t narrowly focused. The issue of the non-lethel weapons might have been better to be in a separate lawsuit. I come from the Alan Gura school of suing on the most egregious item as opposed to the NRA school of suing bases on everything plus the kitchen sink. The respective suits against Chicago’s New Gun Law provides examples of both of these approaches.

I have embedded the full complaint from Baker v. Kealoha et al below. I haven’t had time to read it in its entirety yet so cannot speak to its points of law.

CV11-00513SOM-RLP
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H/T Brandon Combs