2017-01-17 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – January 17, 2017 have this – we have a lot of illegal activity going on with firearms. People don’t buy firearms not to shoot them – so they’re eventually going to discharge a firearms somewhere and probably going to be illegal doing it and that concerns me. It also concerns me that right now your only time to really have firearm education would be in the Hunter Safety Program and if you look at the Hunter Safety Program you don’t even handle a firearm in that program – so where do you really get the education on using a firearm and that’s really where I’d like to leave my commentary. Thank you so much. TL: I appreciate your comments. JW: Thank you for letting us speak. I’m John Wong and I’m a longtime Hilo resident and a lifetime shooter and hunter and I’d just like to add that the Big Island has a huge community of hunters and shooters. We have families of hunters that go many generations deep and the tradition of hunting will always be passed to the next generation. So having a complete shooting facility in Hilo has always been on our wish list. We all need a place to shoot our guns safely and to teach our keiki how to shoot. Whenever I’m at the Skeet and Trap Range, I’m grateful and thankful that we have a first class facility to use and you could see that the county is very proud of this range, especially when they host local and national tournaments that draw hunters and shooters to Hilo from all over the world. Now imagine this – what if you added a pistol and rifle range to that facility? Amen. And make a complete shooting facility, you know, a complete shooting complex. I know all of us here would like to see that happen someday and a complete shooting complex would serve us well today and for many generations to come and that’s all I have to say. TL: Everybody here I think agrees with you. OK. Anybody else want to add to John’s commentary here? A comment was made by a person from Laupahoehoe who did not state his name clearly. He wants to get some more information about the process. He is 73 years old and he would like to see the shooting range built. He asked, will the shooting range be funded and operated by the County of Hawaii? And, if so, as to when will the board approach the Mayor and Council? What will happen next? TL: That is good question and that is the purpose of our exploration here. Several of our speakers are gonna be addressing some of that. We need the shooting range and we want to find out what do we need to know in order to take this information to the County Council and to the Mayor and to try and get buy-in from them for a range. It’s a conversation that’s long overdue and we think that we need to have a public conversation with the county and we are looking at a county facility, but, you know, we will be 10