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Hawaiʻi Scene on Social

[{"text":"We're reconsidered our feelings about yard work!","type":"text"}]

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<title>Hawai‘i Scene on Social: You will not guess where this weed-wacking goes</title>

In today's social media find, thepoipoundah demonstrates the proper technique for lawn maintenance with style.

Hawai‘i Scene on Social: You will not guess where this weed-wacking goes

We're reconsidered our feelings about yard work! 

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Michael Brestovansky

Government & Politics

Crime & Courts

Hawai‘i residents between the ages of 18 and 21 should be allowed to own guns, argues a federal lawsuit.

In 2024, two Hawai‘i teenagers and two Hawai‘i gun stores sued the state Attorney General, Anne Lopez, in U.S. District Court, challenging a state law prohibiting the sale of guns to people ages 18 to 20.

The lawsuit names as plaintiffs The Second Amendment Foundation — a Washington-based organization that pursues lawsuits challenging gun restrictions nationwide — and four SAF members in Hawai‘i: 19-year old Elijah Pinales, 18-year-old Juda Roache, Honolulu gun store Danger Close Tactical and Lana‘i gun store JGB Arms.

On Wednesday, the plaintiffs filed in U.S. Circuit Court a 

 for summary judgment in the case, urging the court to find that Hawai‘i's age limit on gun ownership violates the Second Amendment.

The motion states that, under federal law, Pinales and Roache should be able to legally purchase and own firearms, and Danger Close Tactical and JGB Arms should be able to sell firearms to them, but 

Kevin O’Grady, attorney for the plaintiffs, told Aloha State Daily that similar age limits have been successfully challenged in other states, but added that Hawai‘i’s restrictions are more stringent.

“Hawai‘i is the only one to have a complete ban,” O’Grady said. For example, a law in Minnesota that was overturned in 2024 only banned people under the age of 21 from carrying handguns in public, while Hawai‘i's laws outright prohibit the issuing of firearm permits to anyone under the age of 21.

O’Grady said the ban was established in the 1990s, although a bill passed last year also banned the sale of ammunition to anyone under the age of 21.

With the filing of the motion, O’Grady said the state is now left to prove that the ban does not violate the Second Amendment by establishing that there were laws set in place at the time of the founding of the U.S. that functionally imposed the same ban.

While legal challenges against age restrictions have been successful in Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Texas, O’Grady said courts in Virginia and Georgia have upheld age restrictions.

“They said that, at the time of the founding, that minors couldn’t [sign a] contract,” O’Grady said, adding that he believes the courts missed the context of the laws in the 1700s, which he said instead made contracts with minors voidable in order to protect them from entering into exploitative deals.

Even so, O’Grady said, laws in the 1700s still allowed minors to enter into contracts for necessities.

“If you’re a hunter who needed a gun to hunt, a gun was a necessity,” O’Grady said. “If you needed a gun for militia service, a gun was a necessity.”

Complicating matters further is the fact that, at the time of the founding, the age of majority was still 21, O’Grady said. With the age of minority lower now, he said, a centuries-old law intended to restrict the rights of minors doesn’t support prohibiting gun ownership by people 18 years or older today.

The motion sets a trial date in July 2026, although O’Grady said the court may rule on the matter beforehand.

For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up 

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<title>Lawsuit challenges Hawai‘i age limit on gun ownership</title>

State law prohibiting gun ownership between the ages of 18 and 20 is the subject of a 2024 lawsuit moving forward in U.S. court.

Lawsuit challenges Hawai‘i age limit on gun ownership

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Katie Helland

Arts & Entertainment

Hawaii History

The Hawaiʻi International Film Festival 

 in the running for its Made in Hawaiʻi awards on Thursday, Sept. 25, at a media event at HIFF headquarters in Kaimukī. 

This year, HIFF runs from Oct. 15 through mid-November and includes events on Oʻahu, Maui, Lānaʻi, Kauaʻi, Hawaiʻi Island and Molokaʻi. The festival features 

, according to numbers shared at the press event.

Aloha State Daily spoke with several filmmakers to learn more about showcases that will be part of the festival. Ricky-Thomas Serikawa, the director of “Back to the Loko,” and Alex Bocchieri, the director of “Dasher,” spoke about their works nominated for the Made in Hawaiʻi short film award. 

. I already knew some of the people that worked with them, so that's how I got brought on. Basically, it's a short documentary about the restoration of loko iʻa, the Hawaiian fish ponds. And specifically for this project, they're working with the Native Hawaiian mullet, which is called ʻama ʻama. It has a couple parts to it. There's Waiʻanae High School. The kids over there, they're the ones that receive the baby fish, and then once they get to a certain size, they ship them over to a fish farm on the Big Island in Hilo. The documentary just follows that process. The importance of restoring fish ponds and just highlighting our culture and our values in that, but also bringing a population of Native Hawaiian kids back into spaces of ʻāina and seeing how that parallel grows.

Bocchieri: “Dasher” is a short narrative film. It's a comedy drama about a DoorDash driver in Honolulu on Christmas Eve. They get into some crazy adventures. Largely, it's more about just the struggle of being a local person. Trying to make it in Hawaiʻi, you kind of have to always be working full-time.

Serikawa: Just watch them. And share them.

Bocchieri: Yeah, I agree. Watch them and share them. If you have the opportunity to support a local filmmaker, you should take it because it is harder than ever.

I think it was the kids. Because a lot of those kids were really camera shy. And they just didnʻt really know what was going on while they were filming and stuff. But once we got them talking and once we sat down for interviews, to hear the kind of insight they had — and how much they cared about the work they were doing — that was pretty cool.

Bocchieri: This was really a collaboration between some of my favorite people, some of my favorite local filmmakers. That's my favorite part of making films is getting everybody together, because it's so hard to connect with friends and just do fun things together. My screenwriter on this, 

, is a very talented writer. He wrote “Moana 2” and “Doogie Kamealoha, M.D.” and many other things.

Nominated features for the “Made in Hawaiʻi Award - Feature Film” include:

Those nominated for the “Made in Hawaiʻi Award - Short Film” include:

Hawaiʻi International Film Festival

<title>Meet two HIFF filmmakers nominated for Made in Hawaiʻi awards</title>

Ricky-Thomas Serikawa, the director of “Back to the Loko,” and Alex Bocchieri, the director of “Dasher,” are showcasing their work at the Hawaiʻi International Film Festival. Their films are nominated for the festival’s Made in Hawaiʻi short film award.

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