Pistol permit fee increase is blatant attempt to limit gun ownership

Regarding Gov. Dannel Malloy’s proposed 2-year state budget and his plans to close the budget gap: One of his proposals is to increase the initial pistol permit fee from $140 to $370 – a 264 percent increase, and to increase the 5-year renewal fee for permit holders from $70 to $300 – a 428 percent increase.

Make no mistake about it, this proposal that is squarely directed at gun owners is a blatant attempt to limit gun ownership by making it prohibitively expensive to do so, while claiming the need for more revenue to fill the gaping budget hole.

The potential $12 million in new revenue from this proposal amounts to only .0033 percent of the two-year budget deficit. If the need for more revenue is the reasoning for the proposed increases, why not increase ALL state issued permits by 300 percent or so, including driver’s learner permits, driver licenses, boating licenses, CDL driver licenses, barber shop licenses and any other state issued permits? But I’m sure he couldn’t raise enough money even that way to fill the never-ending budget hole that his two previous massive tax increases also didn’t fix.

These proposed fee increases have nothing to do with filling the budget hole. Gov. Malloy is using the cover of the budget to further restrict gun ownership via massively increased taxation because he is unable to get further restrictions via legislation.

The fact that his proposal seems to be entirely discriminatory towards one class of state residents seems to be inconsequential to him as he’s more concerned with scoring political points with the anti-gun voters.

Craig Hoffman lives in Cheshire.