Submitted by saqmuel15643 t3_10xwhe8 in Connecticut
Governor Lamont has just released the full Gun ban proposal for 2023 (seen below).
I am personally a gun owner, so i ma be biased... But i don't really see how this bill does anything to make CT safer.
Starting with the open carry ban:
Firstly, open carry is idiotic, and anyone who does it is an idiot. However, open carry doesn't exactly lead to mass shootings. I'm not sure the last time when someone was open carrying and committed a crime. People generally hide the fact they are carrying a weapon
Next up is the rimfire rifle ban. The bill indicates that .22 children's rifles are assault weapons... Now I'm not sure how many people here have shot a .22... But it is NOT An assault weapon. It's designed for squirrel hunting, or small animals at most. Again, i don't see how this would make any difference at all.
The big issue for me is the Pre Ban "ban". CT, for years has promised pre ban rifles are okay. I don't think they have once been used in a mass shooting, and if they have, it must have been a long time ago here in CT. This proposal alone has almost zero support from the Democratic CT party in the state. I'm not sure what the reasoning is here, but banning something that's never been used like this just seems wrong.
Finallyz the "other" ban. This ban is to try and close the loop hole in squiring an AR15. However, again to my prior point, these have never been used in a mass shooting. They are not classified as pistols or rifles, and plain as day, the stats show 0
Now with all this being said, it seems as though even the CT anti Gun league agrees. These bans are not going to help CT streets at all as none of these items actually are being used in crimes. I just don't understand the logic. The anti gun league actually proposed to instead use the funds for inner city education and trying to get illegal pistols off the street (pistols are FAR more common to be used in crimes and shootings) direct from the article:
“It’s not on our wish list,” said Jeremy Stein, the executive director of Connecticut Against Gun Violence. “Our top agenda item is to make sure that there is sufficient funding for community violence interruption and intervention.”
CT is already one of the safest states in the country, and I'm not sure making over several hundred thousand CT residents felons over night is the right answer (about 170,000 people in CT have LTCs and 589,000 have guns in their homes (Non carry gun licenced), 23% of our state adults have them), so let's say half have a rifle in this catagory, probably more as .22s are the most common rifle to own. We're looking at about 250,000 felons created by this law.
Linked also is the article about the lack of support for this.
https://ctmirror.org/2022/12/09/ct-ar-15-ban-gov-ned-lamont-repeal-exemption/