Short of systematically limiting guns to homes and hunters, does any of this chatter about gun control in the Connecticut General Assembly have any relevance? Tough on guns, tough on ammo, tough on access to weapons? Does it really matter? Is it just a bunch of talk and no action? Don’t miss the Great Deal on Rhino 4X Acog Optics at Amazon.
Ken Dixon of the CT Post writes:
A “Guns 101” demonstration in the state’s public safety headquarters in Middletown this week paved the way for an eventual bipartisan agreement on further gun controls.
Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers who attended the event said Thursday they learned a lot about the nuances of assault-style weapons similar to the rifle Adam Lanza used to kill 20 children and 6 adults last month at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
House Minority Leader Lawrence F. Cafero Jr. said his knowledge of weaponry was minimal before the police tutorial, but he was left with the feeling that public safety could be enhanced if owners of rifles with external magazines of bullets were required to have permits similar to those with handguns.
“The first step in analyzing any issue has to be education,” said Cafero, R-Norwalk. “There are so many of us who are ignorant as to the mechanics of guns and the details of our current laws on guns that this really shed a lot of light on the process we have before us.”
Legislators talk about informational, educational, transformational, froth-at-the-mouth sensational. Short of saying you can have a weapon of defense in your home, you can have a weapon to live off the land, is it all just a bunch of crap?
If you want my support, explain to me how any law you enact would have kept that Bushmaster the cops recently seized out of the hands of that crackhead.
Otherwise, in the words of Mel Brooks: “O Lord, do we have the strength to carry off this mighty task in one night? Or are we just jerking off?”
If there were a ban on the distribution of assault weapons, Adam Lanza’s mother wouldn’t have been able to buy one.
And as far as arming teachers and administrators in public schools: Ronald Reagan was surrounded by Secret Service agents when John W. Hinckley Jr. was able to walk up and start firing. Did it really protect the POTUS?
Adam Lanza also had two handguns of the types carried by law enforcement, a Glock and a Sig-Sauer. They would be no less dead shot with one of these. You aren’t persuading me.
Hinckley only got off six shots before he was taken down. Who was there to take down Lanza?
The NRA represents weapons manufacturers, iron mongers, NOT gun owners.
Hinckley used a Rohm RG-14 6-shot revolver in 22LR (and missed with all 6 shots; Reagan was wounded with a ricochet). I think Adam Lanza used one of the pistols to kill himself. Nonetheless, his weapon of choice was the battle rifle. Pistols are more effective at close range but assault rifles will work both close up and at much longer range. But here’s the thing, seems to me: pistols are the gun of choice in up close and personal crimes, and are usually what we are talking about as illegal weapons–powerful, not hard to use and easily concealed. But they are hard to get legally. When a psycho is looking to buy a gun, he runs into a brick wall if he tries to buy a pistol at a gun shop here in CT … he can easily obtain a semi-automatic high-capacity rifle, though (as easy as buying a .22 for target practice). Some here probably remember Bridgeport’s own terrorist from a couple years back, Faisal Shahzad. The story of his weapon of choice is interesting, I thought:
www .nytimes.com/2010/05/06/nyregion/06gun.html
Connecticut, Illinois, California, New York … states with perhaps the most restrictive gun laws have the highest incidence of illegal gun usage. It isn’t the legal guns, it’s the illegal use of illegal guns. This argument seems to have no sensible solution.
How do you get the illegal guns off the street? That is the major part of this discussion. Not the legal guns owned by sane, licensed, responsible persons …
One of the motivations for sane, responsible people to own a gun is, of course, the number of idiots with illegal guns … to get them off the street you will probably have to shut down I-95. Short of nationwide approaches (background checks and eliminating casual gun show and private sales), states rights seem to preclude a solution. Another big problem here in CT is the value of industries in our state such as Colt Firearms in Hartford and Mossberg in North Haven as far as employment and tax revenue–it will not be a feather in the cap of any administration that sees them pick up stakes and move to Montana or Idaho. New York State and Massachusetts have the same problem, with Remington in NY, Smith & Wesson, Savage and others in Mass. And in keeping with the “low profile until it blows over” and maybe a few platitudes thrown in (why the Democrats are going full speed, executive orders etc. while this issue is still fresh) this may very well turn out to be a bunch of crap. So many guns in this country …
I can’t lay claim to any expertise regarding guns or ammo or what have you. I wouldn’t know a Bushmaster from a Bush Whacker nor a Tommy Gun from and Eddie or a Bob.
What I do pose is a rudimentary analogy and an equally simple question which I am fully prepared to be “shot down” regarding:
One of the tools of the trade for “fixing stuff” for a prescribing medical professional are prescription drugs. The public at large has no LEGAL access to these tools unless prescribed for by a medical professional with prescriptive authority.
Weapons with large capacity, external or otherwise, rapid-fire magazines are designed to kill people-a lot of people, and quickly. These are the tools of the trade for Military Operatives, Police, and other similar types of Professionals Why does the public at large have access to them? Why are they “Over the Counter” for lack of a better term?
Zena, you hit the nail on the head with the word LEGAL in describing access to drugs as an analogy to acquiring a “gun” (gun meaning any weapon that shoots a bullet). How do you propose getting the illegal guns (non-registered and in illegal hands) off the streets and away from criminals who rob or drug dealers? It isn’t the legal guns and those with a license to carry legal guns that is the problem. It’s the access to those weapons, ammunition and the sanity of those who can get them that matter.
I don’t know, Bob. I was just addressing “assault”-style weapons. I am not anti-gun per se. I think folks have the right to protect themselves and to shoot for food and controlled sport. I do think we need to do what we can do. The locus of control is tight here and there are no easy fixes. Psychological screening is a good idea, limits on the number of guns that can be registered to a “layperson” maybe? Restricting the types of guns the public has access to? Our options lie within the confines of legality. We can’t get illegal guns off the streets by illegal means now, can we?
Maybe we could go with the Chris Rock solution. “If bullets cost $5,000 apiece, there would be no innocent bystander casualties.”
Zena, do you know a bullet can be reloaded and reused? And sales of ammo aren’t regulated the same way a carry license or a weapon is? The sale of ammunition has soared and the sale of legal weapons has also.
You might be onto something there, Zena Lu. In CT “long guns” (rifles and shotguns) are not hard to get–fill out some forms at the gun shop, which are submitted to the state for approval and registration, wait two weeks and walk out with your purchase. Pistols, on the other hand, are much more difficult to acquire: training course ($$$), applications and lengthy waiting for police approval, permits, background checks etc. So why not have “assault” weapons in a category all their own, similar to pistols and requiring some rigor involved in the procedure to own them?
Individual states enacting tighter restrictions on gun and ammunition ownership is all fine and good but will not mean much. Connecticut, along with Massachusetts and New York, have the most stringent gun laws in the United States, but none of the laws prevent firearms purchased out of state from getting into the hands of criminals. Virtually every incidence of gun violence in Bridgeport was committed with a handgun purchased out of state. So the solution is federal regulation. A national database exists. Why is the NRA opposed to a law requiring background checks for anyone attempting to purchase a firearm? Why does the NRA have a problem with keeping firearms out of the hands of criminals? At one time the association’s focus was gun safety. And then along came Wayne LaPierre, the NRA’s current CEO and executive vice president. He changed the organization’s focus to lobbying efforts aimed at eliminating or reducing gun control laws.
The Bushmaster .223, the Uzi and the TEC-9 have no practical civilian use. No one ever used an AK47 to hunt deer, to hunt ducks.
So most here think our Second Amendment was written for hunters and sportsmen. How sad.
Why did some kid in a National Guardsman uniform have an assault rifle on Midland Street on Ash Creek after Hurricane Sandy? We’ve become “wacko.”
I put freedom first, but the fantasy the 2% or so (percentage probably went up big time in the last month) of gun owners who own “assault rifles” will rise up against our repressive government and save the Constitutional Republic is exactly what is selling these weapons and reaping huge profits for the gun industry. The corporatocracy has long had the upper hand, and they keep getting better at it: unlimited surveillance, drones, electronic and chemical “crowd control,” and the legal system … your weapons might come in handy after their house of cards collapses, or some other “black swan” comes our way, but keep in mind the fact the selector switch on the AR’s used by the powers that be has the fully automatic option.
I am all for the Second Amendment. The National Rifle Association was founded to promote firearm safety. Somew2here along the way the organization’s focus shifted to fighting any and all efforts to impose restrictions on the sales and possession of any type of firearm.
When I lived and attended college in Iowa in the early ’90s I owned a .12-guage Remington shotgun and a .22 Winchester rifle. I used them to hunt or target shoot. I know all about the proper method of handling firearms. The problem is gang bangers send people with clean records down to states with lax gun sale laws. Those people bring back firearms that end up on our city’s streets. The people who fire these weapons don’t know the first thing about gun safety and don’t care. Witness the little girl who caught a round in the buttocks. The punk-assed bitch who pulled the trigger in that incident ought to be horse-whipped and thrown into prison for 20 years.