Hawaii regulates the manufacture, sale, and possession of ghost guns. Hawaii’s law¹

• Prohibits a person who is not licensed to manufacture firearms from possessing, purchasing, producing with a three-dimensional printer, or otherwise obtaining separately, or as part of a kit:
  • A firearm receiver that is not imprinted with a serial number registered with a federally licensed manufacturer;
  • A firearm receiver that has not been provided a serial number that may be registered by a licensed gun dealer; or
  • Any combination of parts from which a firearm having no serial number may be readily assembled; provided that the parts do not have the capacity to function as a firearm unless assembled.

• Requires firearms assembled from parts created using a three-dimensional printer to have a serial number engraved on stainless steel and permanently embedded to the firearm receiver during fabrication or construction.
• Requires a dealer who brings into the state separate parts and an unfinished firearm receiver that when assembled create a firearm, or parts created by a three-dimensional printer that when assembled create a firearm, must register the unfinished firearm receiver and receive a serial number before the assembly of the firearm or the sale or transfer of unassembled firearm parts or a receiver to a third party.
• Requires any sale or transfer of unfinished firearm receivers by an authorized dealer to a third party shall be conducted as if they were fully assembled firearms and subject to the same background checks and licensing requirements.

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1. Haw. Rev. Stat. § 134-10.2. This statute was first enacted in 2020 as Hawaii H.B. 2744. It was revised in 2021 to add an enumerated prohibition on possession because, according to a legislative note, “persons found to be in possession of firearms having no serial number . . . claim that their actions do not violate the law because the parts used to assemble the firearm were acquired before the September 15, 2020 effective date” of the statute. Haw. H.B. 1366 (2021).[↩]