Prepare yourself, because this will shock almost no one: the gun lobby is blatantly lying to Hawaii legislators.

People who make money off the sales of firearms are trying to sell our elected leaders on the idea that hunters in the state need military-style assault weapons to hunt and control the feral pig population. They might be selling, but as a combat veteran, I am not buying, and neither should our lawmakers.

The debate is over Senate Bill 3196, which would close the assault rifle loophole in the state.

In Hawaii, we have banned assault pistols for decades, a law pre-dating the 1994 federal ban on assault weapons. However, our law stopped short of banning assault rifles.

Perhaps that was because when the law was made, mass shootings were rare. This was before the shooting at Columbine, which was one of the first to garner national headlines. Perhaps it has remained on the books in this way because the last major mass shooting in Hawaii was the infamous Xerox shooting in 1999.

But things are changing. 

Hawaii experienced a mass shooting last year when two people were killed and three more injured at an illegal rooster fight. And this year, so far, the U.S. is averaging more than one mass shooting per day.

The most deadly mass shootings in history have been perpetrated by military-style assault rifles like the Daniel Defense DDM4 (Uvalde), SIG MCX (Orlando), Colt M4 Carbine AR-15 (Las Vegas), Bushmaster XM-15 (Newtown), Ruger AR-556 (Sutherland Springs), and Smith & Wesson M&P15 (Parkland). These weapons of war placed into civilian hands killed 200 people in these six locations alone.

What makes us think that a school, theater, or public gathering in Hawaii can’t be next?

‘Tools Of War’

We do have strong gun laws. The Legislature took action last year to strengthen the rules for concealed carry licenses and designated sensitive places to help keep dangerous people from accessing and carrying guns.

But then again, more than 80% of mass shooters who attacked K-12 schools acquired their guns by stealing them from family members who purchased them legally.

Thus, with more of these tools of war in our islands — even if the purchaser passes a background check and follows most laws — it is much more likely that someone dangerous could access and use an assault weapon to wreak havoc on our community.

It’s past time to update our laws to cover all assault weapons.

A typical AR-15 fires a 5.5-millimeter metal projectile at 1,000 meters per second (three times faster than a pistol). At a gun range, it leaves a small clean hole in the target. In flesh, it does something very different.

As it enters a body, a high rate of spin causes the round to tumble, ricocheting off bones, cavitating organs, and exiting through a gaping hole. This destruction of the innards is meant to kill.

In the military, we are trained to use M4s to kill the enemy. In the civilian world, similar weapons are still the best guns for killing humans. Use this gun on a pig or an axis deer, and it will destroy good, edible meat.

Semi-automatic weapons also have a high cyclic rate, meaning that multiple rounds can be fired in rapid succession. In the Army, I learned to use this technique to suppress the enemy; for example, shooting over and over at a bunker, so that my squad mates could move without being shot at. (It’s like in the movies when they say “cover me.”)

That rate of fire is only required if the thing you are shooting at is shooting back. So, unless the game being hunted learns to use a gun, a hunter doesn’t need a semi-automatic assault rifle. In fact, putting more than one round into an animal risks ruining good meat.

We all know hunters, and we know they prefer to eat what they kill. They also often refer to themselves as sportsmen. If they are using AR-15s, they are no such thing.

And this is where the lies come in.

The NRA and other mainland-based organizations have mobilized a small, vocal group of gun lovers — who may or may not live in Hawaii and who may or may not hunt — to email state legislators and insist that they need semi-automatic military-style assault weapons to kill animals.

I say: false, deceptive, reprehensible.

Why would we put the wellbeing of our children and our community at risk to satisfy the whims of people who simply love guns as a hobby and are willing to go to extreme measures to reduce restrictions?

If you can’t kill a feral pig with a bolt-action in .243 Winchester, 6mm Creedmoor, or the vast majority of hunting rifles that will not be banned, then you should be ashamed to call yourself a hunter, and perhaps look into marksmanship classes.