Hundreds of gun owners, firearms manufacturers and people who shoot for sport came to the Legislative Office Building in Hartford Wednesday to criticize a bill that would make it illegal to own large-capacity ammunition clips — those capable of holding 10 rounds or more.
Several people at a lengthy public hearing before the judiciary committee went on record in favor of the ban, including the mayors of the state’s three largest cities, but critics vastly outnumbered supporters.
The Connecticut bill is not as carelessly drafted as McCarthy’s, but it would still make it unmanageable to comply, as there is no grandfathering. All magazines possessed would have to be turned in for destruction. Do you know where all your magazines are? I don’t. I keep track of the guns. The magazines just end up places, and I have dozens and dozens of them. And how many gun owners are going to know about the new requirement? How many are going to find out about it at a traffic stop, after the cuffs go on?
“Large-capacity ammunition magazines are designed to enable shooting mass numbers of people quickly and efficiently without reloading,” Mayors Bill Finch of Bridgeport, John DeStefano of New Haven and Pedro Segarra of Hartford said in a joint letter to the committee. “We have a responsibility to protect our citizens and to ensure that another Tucson, Arizona incident never happens again.”
So your police don’t need them either right? Right? I mean, if that’s what they are for. But it’s probably not surprising that Connecticut’s bill exempts police officers. Great turnout by people in Connecticut. Hopefully the pressure stays on, and this can be defeated.
It’s time for Colt, Ruger, and others to start the process of leaving CT. The CT gov’t is clearly hostile to an industry with large economic impact. The state has no regard for the people who support families while working in the firearms industry. I know PA would more than welcome Colt and Ruger to relocate here.
It’s how we defeat this stuff in Maryland year after year. Even when the committee chair plays last-minute hearing schedule games, Maryland shooters still show up and outnumber the antis by a factor of anywhere from 30 to 200:1. Most bills never make it out of committee due to the amount of “Oppose” constituent testimony against them whatever the prejudices of the supporters may be. If there is one thing they understand is those are voters in front of them. Even in a one-party hellhole like Maryland.
Alas, it also means the favorable bills get a “desk drawer” veto where the anti-gun chairman simply never lets them out for an up-down committee vote. If he did, we’d likely be “Shall Issue” by now. Support for such bills is overwhelming but strikes against the Chairman’s biases and since he wields that much power, he simply runs the clock out on the bill to the end of the session. If there is one thing I’d like to see changed is the ability of a majority of the committee at the behest of their constituents to force an up-down vote on such bills to allow them to proceed.
We hold our own here despite the anti-gun minority that hold powerful chairs. Polling time and time again has shown in the general house the gun rights bills would likely receive majority support and pass absent any major poison pills.
Some folks need to be reminded that in 1949, in Camden, NJ, a man named Howard Unruh shot to death 13 people. Unruh was armed with a Luger and two 8-round magazines. So the lack of higher-capacity magazines is certainly no serious impediment.
And some people need to be reminded that a main gun at Columbine was a 10-rounder, along with low-capacity shotguns.
The guy in Cumbria UK racked up more bodies than Loughner with a pair of single shot break-actions. The anti’s keep supposing that the crazy won’t alter tactics to fit the new reality.
If they take your magazines without offering legal replacements,aren’t they affecting your rights under the second amendment?
This proposed law is a knee-jerk response to the Arizona shootings. As such,it has no useful purpose.It’s too bad all of us who are disgusted with the state can’t vote with our feet and leave the state to the liberals and criminals.
CT has tried to ban magazines that were over 10 rounds in the past. Obviously if it were an affective means of controlling gun violence, they wouldn’t have repealed that law a couple of years ago. Obviously these ANTI’S that know nothing about guns and are closed-minded to people like us who enjoy shooting guns for sport, don’t really seem to understand that if you want to kill more people, it doesn’t matter if you can only carry magazines that hold 10 rounds, you carry more magazines, right? Screw ANTI’S!!!