Billy Peter, a Honolulu resident and citizen of the Federated States of Micronesia, wanted to buy a gun.

But the Honolulu Police Department turned him down last fall, telling him that he was not qualified to apply for a permit because he was a Compact of Free Association alien.

COFA treaties between the U.S. and the FSM, the Republic of Palau and the Republic of the Marshall Islands allow for citizens of the three Micronesian nations to live and work in the U.S. indefinitely.

HPD asked Peter to present his immigration paperwork, which he did — a Form I-94, which is a record of arrivals and departures used by COFA migrants. But an HPD officer told him that the paperwork was no good and that he needed a green card to own a firearm.

Peter viewed HPD’s rejection of a firearm permit as a denial of his Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. He also saw it as a violation the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because, by denying Peter a gun permit, a COFA migrant was treated differently than a U.S. citizen.

In November, Peter filed a lawsuit against Hawaiʻi Attorney General Anne Lopez in federal court. The case cited a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n Inc. v. Bruen, which struck down a New York state law requiring applicants for conceal-carry licenses to show good cause.

The high court determined that the New York law was unconstitutional under the Second Amendment. The Bruen ruling, Peter’s lawsuit argued, “expressly invited challenges such as this one.”

The lawsuit also challenged Hawaiʻi Revised Statute 134-2, which states, “The chief of police of the respective counties shall issue permits to acquire firearms to: Citizens, nationals, or lawful permanent residents of the United States of the age of twenty-one years or more.”

Peter “desires and intends to purchase a firearm for lawful purposes and would do so but for the state’s adult ‘non-citizen’ prohibitions.”

The lawsuit noted that Peter, a maintenance worker at Kamehameha Schools and a car detailer at Enterprise Rental, had no criminal history, no disqualifying mental health history and had lived in Hawaiʻi for over 10 years.

He also completed a handgun safety course in 2024 and “is thus qualified to acquire a handgun,” according to the lawsuit.

In mid-January, judges with the U.S. District Court in Hawaiʻi approved a settlement in Peter’s favor. Peter’s attorneys, Kevin O’Grady of Honolulu and Alan Beck of San Diego, will receive $28,500 from the state.

The payment is part of a claims against the state bill that is expected to be approved at the Hawaiʻi Legislature later this month. Claims bills are routinely introduced at the Legislature and address multiple approved legal settlements. The bill, which has been amended throughout the session as new settlements have been added, totaled about $7.8 million and covered 31 claims as of last week.

In an interview, O’Grady said the court did not make a ruling as to whether COFA migrants are entitled to rights granted by the Second Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment.

“It was not contested, so we cannot say that a court made a ruling that way,” he said. “It was settled that they are not disqualified by merely being COFA migrants, so they can purchase and acquire firearms.”

O’Grady declined to say whether Peter would now try to obtain a firearm.

“However, it was part of the injunction that he indicated that, were it not for the law, he would immediately go and acquire a firearm,” he said. “I’ll just leave you with that.”