WASHINGTON – Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy want some of the nation’s largest sporting goods stores to wait for the FBI to complete background checks on gun purchasers in all cases – and hope customers boycott those stores if they don’t.
Gun Reform
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Nine shot, one dead in Bridgeport, ho hum.
Having witnessed numerous shootings, murders, break-ins, drug arrests and gang activity, the residents of Bridgeport’s Trumbull Gardens are accustomed to hearing gunshots in the night; and another shooting is hardly front page news. But even by the jaded standards of inner-city life, the shootings June 11 were exceptional in their brutality, their random nature and the utter disregard for human life displayed by the killers. And yet, aside from Mayor Bill Fitch and his rival in the upcoming primary, former mayor Joe Ganim, the Bridgeport police and some local clergy, the silence from Connecticut’s leaders is telling.
Posted inHealth, Politics
CT law sharply reduced gun killings, study says
WASHINGTON – Connecticut’s decision in 1995 to make it harder to purchase a hand gun has sharply reduced gun-related homicides, a new Johns Hopkins University study shows. Gun rights advocates disagreed with the finding.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
CT restraining order bill — protection for women or an infringement of firearms rights?
Dozens of witnesses have offered their opinion on Senate Bill 650, a proposal that would enhance in several ways protection for restraining order applicants. One controversial element, however, would also abridge the rights of Connecticut firearms owners, opponents say. Here are excerpts from a sampling of the written testimony both in favor of and opposing the firearms portion of the bill.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
The Second Amendment does not prohibit, it requires, regulations
As long there have been guns in America there has been regulation. Safe storage laws date back to the colonial era. Guns safes and safe storage laws make everyone safer. Legislators ought to not only encourage safe gun ownership and use; they ought to reward such practices with tax incentives.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Shot by relative, he still opposes firearm safety law’s expansion
In this second commentary in a series of opinions both in support and opposition to HB 6962, a firearm storage safety bill, the president of the Connecticut Citizens Defense League tells legislators how he was accidentally shot as a youth by a relative who was playing with a stolen gun. “The bullet hit my shoulder, hit my neck, lodged against my spine, hit the artery in my neck. … I lost the use of my arm. And I’m still here today to tell you that I believe that people need to be able to have access to their firearms in a way that they deem fit.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Expansion of Connecticut’s Firearm Safety Act is justified
The Connecticut General Assembly is currently considering HB 6962, an Act Concerning Firearm Safety, that will expand the state’s requirements for safe gun storage and set penalties for gun owners whose firearms fall into the wrong hands. This commentary from Connecticut Against Gun Violence is the first of a series of opinions in support and opposition to the bill. Others will be forthcoming in the days ahead.
Posted inPolitics
Esty, other lawmakers renew push for expanded gun background checks
WASHINGTON — Although they’ve been rebuffed by their colleagues before, a group of determined House lawmakers on Wednesday re-introduced legislation that would broaden FBI background checks of gun buyers.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
To reduce gun deaths, focus on Connecticut’s drug trade, gang life
The killings at Sandy Hook Elementary School were horrible, but Connecticut is overlooking the dozens of individual gun deaths that take place with little notice in the state’s largest cities.
Posted inNews
Op-Ed: To reduce gun deaths, focus on Connecticut’s drug trade, gang life
The killings at Sandy Hook Elementary School were horrible, but Connecticut is overlooking the dozens of individual gun deaths that take place with little notice in the state’s largest cities.
Posted inHealth, Politics
Sandy Hook panel: Further tighten gun laws, improve mental health care
The commission Gov. Dannel P. Malloy created after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School will consider a draft report Friday recommending a further tightening of Connecticut’s gun laws, a prospect unlikely to find support in the General Assembly. The draft also describes a need for better integrating mental and physical health care and for reducing the stigma that many people with mental illness face.
Posted inHealth, Politics
Newtown activists introduce bill banning high-capacity magazines
WASHINGTON – Newtown activists on Thursday helped introduce the first gun safety bill in this Congress, officially kicking off the gun control debate on Capitol Hill. The bill would ban large capacity ammunition clips for everyone but military members and law enforcement officers.
Posted inPolitics
NRA fails to block judicial nomination of ‘anti-gunner’
The Connecticut legislature Friday ignored an NRA campaign to block the judicial nomination of a former legislator who co-sponsored the post-Newtown gun controls, voting overwhelmingly to confirm Auden C. Grogins of Bridgeport as a judge of the Superior Court.
Posted inPolitics
Murphy breaks Senate tradition with high-profile stands
WASHINGTON – With his fight for gun control, defense of the Affordable Care Act and clashes with President Obama on foreign policy, Sen. Chris Murphy broke with a Senate tradition that freshmen should be seen and not heard. “I don’t think there’s a waiting period anymore for freshmen,” he said. “My constituents did not elect me to be a shrinking violet.” (This is the seventh and final story in a series about the roles each member of the Connecticut congressional delegation played in the 113th Congress.)
Posted inPolitics
Blumenthal big on introducing legislation, bigger on consumer advocacy
WASHINGTON – Only one other senator co-sponsored more legislation than Sen. Richard Blumenthal in the outgoing Congress — just one indication of the Connecticut Democrat’s energy and broad reach on Capitol Hill. He’s used his position as a member of the majority party in the Senate and his role on key committees to make the most of his political clout. (This is the sixth in a series of stories about the roles each member of the Connecticut congressional delegation played in the 113th Congress.)