News Release from Attorney Alan Beck, Sept 16, 2025

Kevin O'Grady and I just won another lawsuit against the County of Hawaii. This is my seventh Second Amendment win against the County of Hawaii. The main thing accomplished by this case is the County of Hawaii has had a court order entered against it that prohibits it from using police investigations absent a prosecution as grounds for denying firearm rights.

A little bit about the case.

Paul Kealoha is a retired lifeguard for Hawaii County and has lived in Hawaii his entire life. After his retirement, he began helping Hawaii County residents cull and remove feral pigs from their property. Over the past decade he's removed thousands of feral pigs from people's land.

Last fall, he was helping a Hawaii County landowner with a feral pig infestation. As part of the culling process, he trapped the pigs and then dispatched them with a rifle. A concerned citizen called the police because they heard the gunfire. After Paul left, the police arrived and investigated. The landowner explained that Paul had been legally helping him remove feral pigs and gave the police Paul's name. The next day, the police went to Paul's house and questioned him about the gunfire. After Paul confirmed what the landowner had told the police, the police left without incident. However, as part of their procedures a police report was filed. Paul heard nothing from the police or DA's office about the incident.

Last May, Paul went to Hawaii County Police Department's firearms department to apply for a permit to acquire a new firearm. In June, Paul received a letter informing him that due to the incident with the pigs he could no longer own firearms. His permit was denied and the letter said he had 30 days to turn in his existing firearms or face criminal charges.

Having never had any issues with the law, Paul was extremely concerned and initially reached out to lawyers on the Big Island and could not find one that could help him.

He figured he would have to turn his firearms in to a local gun store and contacted one. The gun store owner knows me and got Paul and I in touch. By this point there was about two weeks before Paul had to turn in his firearms.

Kevin and I filed an emergency temporary restraining order against the County of Hawaii seeking to let Paul keep his firearms. We had a hearing with the judge a couple days after we filed and after the hearing the County agreed to let Paul keep his firearms.

The firearms department was treating an investigation as a prosecution which is contrary to state law and that policy violates the Second Amendment. Today, the County of Hawaii agreed to a stipulated injunction which is a legally binding court order which prevents them from ever using a police investigation absent a prosecution as a basis for denying a person the right to own a firearm.

I'm really proud of the work I've done in this case for a couple reasons.

One, there is no one that can seriously say that the County's actions in this case were justified or promoted public safety. This was just bad policy that resulted in violating people's rights.

Second, if I hadn't taken the case no one else would have. And I like the feeling that my legal career is actually helping people.