Big Island gun buyback in Hilo collects 149 firearms

Hilo residents turned in 149 firearms at a gun buyback held in the upper parking lot of the Hilo Police Station, a one-day count that gave Hawaii Island a clear public-safety benchmark. The event ran from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 349 Kapiolani Street, with Foodland gift cards offered in exchange for voluntarily surrendering unwanted guns.

The total matters because it was not just a stack of weapons moving out of closets and vehicle storage, but a measurable removal from circulation in the county seat and East Hawaii hub. Of the 149 guns collected, the Department of Law Enforcement said eight were assault-style rifles and nine were ghost guns, two categories that often draw close scrutiny because of their potential for misuse and, in the case of ghost guns, the difficulty of tracing them.

The Hilo turnout also extended a broader buyback effort that began in 2024. Officials said the program has collected 2,150 guns since those events started, placing the Hilo tally inside a larger stream of voluntary surrenders rather than treating it as an isolated event. That running total gives law enforcement and county officials a concrete measure of how much unwanted firepower has been pulled out of homes, cars and storage areas across the Big Island.

For residents, the practical value goes beyond the final count. A buyback gives people a lawful way to part with inherited firearms, guns they no longer want to keep, or weapons they would rather not store indefinitely. In a place where Hilo serves as the county seat and a central point for East Hawaii, the event also showed that residents are still willing to use a public disposal option when one is easy to access and tied to a fixed location, a fixed time and a clear exchange.

The 149-gun total leaves officials with a precise checkpoint: how many weapons were removed, what kinds of firearms were surrendered, and how much of the county’s buyback program has accumulated since 2024. The next test is whether the same mix of convenience and incentives will keep drawing residents who want unwanted guns out of circulation without keeping them at home.