State Rep. Gerry Fox, a member of the Bipartisan Task Force On Gun Violence Prevention And Children’s Safety, will hold a press conference with CT Against Gun Violence Executive Director Ron Pinciaro Tuesday. A coalition of leaders from various groups and religious organizations will announce support for the advocacy group’s legislative agenda. CT Against Gun Violence has requested legislation that does the following:
- Strengthens our assault weapons ban with a focus on improving current list and
strengthening functionality features; apply “one military feature” test to
definition of assault weapons. Bans possession and sale. Existing weapons must
be destroyed, turned in to law enforcement, or shipped or sold out of state. - Bans large capacity ammunition magazines of more than 7 rounds. Existing
magazines must be destroyed, turned in to law enforcement, or shipped or sold
out of state. - Requires universal background checks on ALL sales and transfers, including long
guns. - Requires registration of all handguns with annual renewal, including updated
background check; stipulation that all handguns are still in the possession of
original purchaser or transferee; explanation for any handgun not being in their
possession. Require safety inspection every three years. Fee on initial
registration and renewal to mitigate expense. - Make gun owners liable for negligent storage if any person gains access to
firearms and injures himself or another person or causes damage to property.
The violation would be a Class D felony. - Requires a permit to purchase and carry all guns, including long guns, and to
purchase ammunition. - Restricts handgun sales to one gun/month.
According to a CT Against Gun Violence press release, over 330 clergy and over 40 organizations support this agenda. A full list naming these organizations will be distributed at the press conference, held at 11:00 a.m. at the Legislative Office Building.
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22 Responses to State Rep, CT Against Gun Violence To Announce Support For Comprehensive Gun Control Legislation
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Could someone explain to me why if they are against violence they only seek to take actions against guns?
The intersection in this nation of urban poverty and drug policies are responsible for the entirety of our unusually high rates of gun homicide — back out the gang bangers of Chicago and other cities, and America looks like Canada and Scandinavia.
It’s not the guns, it’s the culture.
I understand the anti-gun bigots are fearful.
Fear, mostly of economic status, also fueled the bigots of the south who maintained Jim Crow laws impinging on civil rights.
But simply because people are fearful is no reason to attack civil rights with non-sensical and extreme regulations whose impact on law-biding citizens exercising their rights and privileges is grossly disparate to any reduction in the criminal use of firearms that would occur.
Bans on cosmetic features don’t address the lethality of the weapons, while infringing on First Amendment protections of Freedom of Expression. It also discriminates against physically disabled individuals for whom a feature like a pistol grip is not a nicety but a necessity.
Limiting magazines to below standard capacity, especially of handguns, creates a disparate impact against women — the trade off of having 12, 15, 18 smaller-caliber rounds of less stopping power is less recoil and ability to fire accurately more quickly; most men could would rationally chose more powerful but harder to control rounds in reaction to an arbitrary cap of seven rounds; most women would find it a trade-off they’re not able to make.
Expanding background checks isn’t a bad idea, provided there is a carve-out for family and friends who deem it unnecessary. A bureaucratic check is no substitute for personal knowledge.
There is no need for registration. It serves no purpose other then to enable future confiscations — the goal of gun control bigots (as they allude in their first point demanding existing legally owned guns be sold out of state or destroyed). Annual renewal is simply a harassing regulation meant to discourage a completely lawful activity.
What is “negligent” if “anyone” gains access? If someone breaks into your home, and steals your kitchen knife, and stabs someone with it, should you be held accountable for having pointy knives in your home?
Permits to purchase long guns serve no reasonable purchase. Under 400 of 11,000 gun homicides a year are by long guns. Over 2,000 are murdered by knives — so following the logic of CAGV, if they were primarily aimed at violence, a scheme of permits and registration of knives is more necessary.
While permits to purchase handgun ammunition may seem reasonable at first glance, the reality is handgun violence is driven primarily by drug smuggling and dealing. Permits to buy ammunition will no more reduce gun violence then laws against crack have eliminated it from our streets.
Their seventh proposal is a solution in search of a problem. Particularly if their fourth agenda item was adopted. Even if it isn’t, it only serves to harass law biding citizens — straw buyers since they are criminals bent on breaking the law already will simply work around the restrictions.
That is a list of total nonsense none of which will ever become law.
Matt: As you say “under 400 of 11,000 gun homicides a year are by long guns” which is why we should also ban handguns.
“The intersection in this nation of urban poverty and drug policies are responsible for the entirety of our unusually high rates of gun homicide — back out the gang bangers of Chicago and other cities, and America looks like Canada and Scandinavia.” This shows your racist attitude and your inability to comprehend the socio-economic or ethnic factors in this debate. The fact is that a very high percentage of people living in Black and Latin communities want laws strengthened in favor of gun restrictions. They are the ones who suffer the thousands of deaths do from gun violence. But it is the Caucasian kid who snaps and pulls his mommy’s guns out of the closet and goes on a killing bing.
Either way, you are welcome to join and help make our communities a safer place to live by turning in your guns now. It is the right thing to do. Be brave. Just say yes to a gun-free country.
Billy,
Facts are not racist.
Blacks account for 13% of the population and over 50% of the homocides. That is reality, not racism.
The murder rates for whites is 1.8/100,000. For hispanics it is 8/100,000. For blacks, it is 17.8/100,000.
In Chicago last year, over 85% of murder convictions were of minorities previously convicted of a felony.
We cannot let political correctness allow us to whistle blindly past the graveyard and ignore the real reasons for America’s high rates of gun murders.
Am I wrong, or does “ex post facto” lawmaking clearly violate the constitution? Even if these proposals were passed, the courts could not uphold the prohibition on posession of any newly banned item due to ex post facto, only the new purchase or acqusition thereof. Thus, it would be a waste of time and taxpayer money to pass a law requiring surrender or divestiture of a certain item when it will ultimately be challenged and struck down in court. At least the federal AWB legislation has this part right: ban on manufacture, transfer, or sale…all existing ownership and posession grandfathered in.
I thought most of the legislators in CT are/were lawyers, yet can’t grasp that an instant legal battle will ensue that they will almost definately lose if most of the “ban posession of” language is left in some of the 90+ proposals on the table.
After the Obamacare ruling, I am pretty sure the majority of the Supreme Court considers the Constitution irrelevant.
For that matter, has there ever been any law that required the immediate surrender or divestiture of something…anything?
Even the 18th amendment clearly stated ” manufacture, sale, or transportation” of booze, but not posession.
I am not(shamefully)a Constitutional expert,unlike our Commander in Thief,but I do believe one of the amendments calls for just and fair compensation of one’s personal property upon government seizure,like in eminent domain cases. So why am I not hearing this brought up during this turn in your gun and clip garbage? I know of some clips that can fetch upwards of $100 dollars,yet no compensation.
Just asking the question.
Conn-serve: Thank you. Your response to Greg was intelligent. I couldn’t fathom that nay collection of firearms would not be accompanied with a payment. It would clearly be illegal.
Our Govt has spent billions of dollars and years of time researching and implimenting programs that have been proven to reduce violent crime. All the government needs to do is actually look at what it already has. At the meetings held in Hartford, I heard time and time again, “One size doesn’t fit all”. Here are some programs that are already working across all of the US. Nothing will ever stop everything.
Ok folks, Here are some reports: How to reduce violent crime – ATF program since 2004, School Shooting Threat Assessment -2010 by US Secret Service, US Dept of Ed, and FBI. I have more stats and other reports. I hate that our Govt, re does stuff over and over again. So lets show our legislators where our tax money has already been spent and have them use what we already have. http://savethousandsnotjustone.com/?page_id=89
All these “anti gun” people that want to ban guns and confiscate them really dont have a damn clue. The criminals and mentally ill in our society will not follow any of these laws, hell they dont follow the ones already on the books. But they will still have these guns and still find ways to have accesss to them. The criminals and mentally ill are not going to turn in or destroy any of these guns or high capacity magazines. All any of this is going to do is creat a larger black market for these guns and magazines. All this is going to do is disarm “legal” gun owners who already play by the rules. It is amazing how these anti gun people have no common sense and are so damn naive that they think that by disarming people who own guns illegally that they will eliminate gun violence. From what I have read on this subject lately, you get the opposite effect when you disarm the legal gun owners in a country you have more gun violence problems not less.
Sam, collecting guns is not an overnight business. It will take generations. We may all be dead by the time most guns have been taken out of circulation.
Let’s start today.
The only thing that I wish to add is that to reduce gun murder, laws must be extremely tightened. No more semi automatic rifles to start. Then on to hand guns. We don’t need them.
We are the only remaining bastard country on the civilized world that allows such easy purchase of guns. Doesn’t that tell you anything?
if it doesn’t, it should.
@post 5,500 gun control rally bill
It tells me thats probably why we are still a free country.
I guess a 5th grade education goes far these days. Di yo make it to 6?
Check your facts and don’t run that line on someone from Switzerland…
“What America can learn from Switzerland is that the best way to reduce gun misuse is to promote responsible gun ownership.”
http://guncite.com/swissgun-kopel.html
To there law abiding public ages 20+ the Swiss army sells a variety of machine guns, submachine guns, anti-tank weapons, anti-aircraft guns, howitzers and cannons. Purchasers of these weapons require an easily obtained cantonal license, and the weapons are registered, In a nation of six million people, there are at least two million guns, including 600,00 fully automatic assault rifles, half a million pistols, and numerous machine guns. Virtually every home has a gun.
Besides subsidised military surplus, the Swiss can buy other firearms easily too. While long guns require no special purchase procedures, handguns are sold only to those with a Waffenerwerbsschien (purchase certificate) issued by a cantonal authority. A certificate is issued to every applicant over 18 who is not a criminal or mentally infirm.
they also have a liberal immigration policy. care to try it?
Mythbusting: Israel and Switzerland are not gun-toting utopias
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/12/14/mythbusting-israel-and-switzerland-are-not-gun-toting-utopias/
There’s a large external anti-gun focus in Connecticut now, loading more than ninety bills before committee review. The plan is to make Connecticut the model gun control state, then carry that across the country. The goal, disarm the population by making it impossible to obtain, own, transfer or use firearms though a series of legal requirements, financial costs, gun features or magazine capacities. So when someone is facing a felony charge for possession of a high cap mag. Well, your guns are taken away, you can never own any guns again anywhere in USA, and we’ll be kind and not have you do jail time. That will be the model for disarming the population in Connecticut through the legal system.
Bob, buy a double barrel 12 gage shotgun. But two of them. Load them. Keep them in a safe place so that you can grab them in case of house entry.
It is your right. I want you to feel safe. Hell, I might even join you a get one myself.
But not these modern semi automatic rifles. They must be as addicting as cocaine. I once liked using cocaine many years ago. You taste it and you just want to keep tasting it. Just like those semi automatic rifles.
I gave up my jones a long time ago. Please give up your jones.
I just joined CAGV even though I don’t favor each of the proposals in the legislative agenda. A holistic approach including tighter gun regulation, focus on treatment for the mentally ill and regulations in the video game and entertainment industries is necessary to change the culture of violence.
I don’t favor banning all guns but I do favor the “well-regulated” concept that is set forth in the 2nd Amendment. Responsible gun owners must be prepared for some inconveniences, i.e. universal background checks, limits on large magazines and ammunition, etc. if we are to become a safer, more civil society.