TY for Passing HB5054

Senate Passes HB 5054 to Protect Victims of Domestic Violence‏

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The Senate of the CT General Assembly voted to pass HB 5054, An Act to Protect Victims of Domestic Violence, in a bipartisan vote of 23-13. The bill was already passed by the House last week.

The bill will require domestic abusers to surrender any firearms owned or possessed within twenty-four hours of service of a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO), pending a hearing to be held within 14 days. Passage of this bill is critical because the period immediately after the victim takes court action to end the relationship is a particularly dangerous time. And presence of a firearm in an abusive relationship makes it five times more likely that the abuse victim will be killed.

Passing an important bill such as this takes the work of many. Thank you to all of you who have contacted your legislators. Your advocacy played a substantial role in securing this vote.

The next step will be for Governor Malloy to sign the bill.  Since he advocated for the bill from the very beginning, we expect that this will happen soon. The bill will then become law.

Thank you for your good work! Together we can be sure that Connecticut will lead the nation in our fight to reduce gun violence.

Judiciary Committee Passes HB 5054 to Protect Victims of Domestic Violence‏

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On Monday night, the Judiciary Committee of the CT General Assembly voted to pass HB 5054, an important bill whose purpose is to protect victims of Domestic Violence. The bill will require domestic abusers to surrender any firearms owned or possessed within twenty-four hours of service of a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO), pending a hearing to be held within fourteen days.  Passage of this bill is critical because presence of a firearm in an abusive relationship makes it five times more likely for the abuse victim to be killed.

Passing an important bill such as this takes the work of many. Thank you to all of you who have contacted your legislators, and in particular those of you whose legislators sit on the Judiciary Committee. Your advocacy played a substantial role in securing this vote.

Our next step will be to work to tell our legislators that we want HB 5054 to move to the floor for a full vote of the House and Senate membership before the session ends on May 4th. The bill will become law following a favorable floor vote.

We’ll be asking you soon to take further measures to make that happen, but for right now, let’s enjoy this important victory.

Thank you for your good work!

Next step towards helping domestic violence victims

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First, thank you! We had a great turnout for the hearing. Excellent testimony was presented on the bills we supported: HB 5054 An Act Protecting Victims of Domestic Violence and SB 429 An Act Concerning Service of Restraining Orders; And one that we opposed: HB 5597 An Act Protecting Domestic Violence Victims Seeking Restraining Orders.

The next important step directly involves you. Committee members will be voting soon whether or not to move these bills out of Committee to be considered for floor votes of the full Senate and House. Please click here to send a follow-up message to your legislator: http://www.congressweb.com/bgagv/84

Note: Legislators care most about what they are hearing from their constituents. At this time, we are limiting email to only constituents of the Judicial Committee members (our system checks this). Please click: http://www.congressweb.com/bgagv/84