CT Public Hearing on Gun Laws

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Gun rights advocates will be present in force. We must show lawmakers that the outrage following Parkland translates to legislative advocacy.

The public hearing for H.B. 5540, to regulate ghost guns, and H.B. 5542, to ban bump stocks, is scheduled for 11am, Friday, March 23 in Hartford at the Legislative Office Building at 300 Capitol Avenue.

There are three ways you can participate in the public hearing:
1. Attend in person as an observer
2. Submit written testimony (with or without attending in person)
3. Testify in person at the hearing

The Judiciary Committee is now accepting written testimony, which is covered in our CAGV Public Hearing and Testimony Guide.

Please click the link below to let us know which of the above you can do, and to download our guide. It gives you everything you need to know about attending the hearing and submitting written or in-person testimony.

Thank you for all you’re doing to keep CT safe from gun violence,

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdxlM_AsYF38Uv2dQhruqRWf8jLMsc_bhaBfDONDz5gwZjJCw/viewform

After Parkland, our supporters are asking, “what can I do?”

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In the aftermath of the latest school shooting, citizens know that “thoughts and prayers” won’t save lives. Our supporters—people like you—are asking, “what can I do?”

There are many ways to support gun violence prevention, but most important for CAGV is to stay focused on our mission of making Connecticut the safest state in the nation from gun violence.

The laws we’ve worked hard to pass in Connecticut could have prevented the Parkland shooting, or at least lowered the death toll:

  • The AR-15 assault weapon and high capacity magazines used by the shooter are banned in Connecticut.
  • Permits to carry firearms in Connecticut require approval of the town’s chief of police, which would not have been granted given the shooter’s history.
  • A powerful tool to prevent mass shootings is our Gun Violence Prevention Order (GVPO) that offers a fair, legal process for law enforcement to remove guns from those who are at imminent risk of harm to themselves or others.

But there is more to do in Connecticut, for which we need your help. Public hearings will soon be held to consider bans on ghost guns and bump stocks. Ghost guns are essentially do-it-yourself kits, available on the Internet, to make firearms at homes—including the AR 15—while evading state and federal gun laws. Bump stocks dramatically increase the rate of fire of semi-automatic firearms, allowing assault weapons to practically operate as machine guns.

Please click here if you want to support our campaign to pass these two important measures.

While progress at the federal level is thwarted by Congressional allies of the gun lobby, we need to keep the pressure on. Three bills now before Congress would extend the protections we have in Connecticut to Florida and the rest of the nation:

  • An assault weapons ban (S.2095),
  • A ban on high capacity magazines (H.R.4052) and
  • Providing grant money for states to implement GVPOs (H.R. 2598)

Telling our Congressional delegation that you support these measures—and asking them to co-sponsor them if they haven’t already—is always helpful.  Click here to contact Senators Blumenthal and Murphy, and your U.S. Representative.

Your advocacy makes a difference, and your financial support is what helps us recruit new advocates. Any contribution you can make goes a long way in supporting our grassroots engagement and advocacy work.

Remembering December 14, 2012

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Vigil hosted by Mothers United Against Violence in honor of the Las Vegas shooting victims, Hartford CT

As it was for those of us who were alive when JKF or Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. were assassinated, or more recently on 9/11, we remember exactly where we were when we heard the news of the Sandy Hook School shooting on December 14, 2012. The indelible mark it made on our nation’s history was about more than the needless death of 20 beautiful children and six caring educators, it was an indictment on the inability of the country to come to grips with the epidemic of gun violence.

Please join us as we pause for a moment today to mourn the unthinkable loss of life in the Sandy Hook classrooms on this day five years ago—and for the more than 165,000 Americans from every walk of life whose lives have also been taken by gunfire since that day.

For many of us, it’s difficult to consider 12/14/12 a turning point in the fight to end gun violence. Sadly, a majority of the Congress—those sworn to protect us and with the power to act—have done less than nothing. But Newtown was a watershed moment.

Never before has a community galvanized the nation to honor with action the lives lost from gun violence as have the determined and passionate survivors and citizens of Newtown. The staff and board of CT Against Gun Violence are honored to know them as our friends and collaborators in the fight to save lives.

So too are we enormously grateful for your unflagging support and generous contribution of time, energy and resources to make the children and communities of Connecticut, and the nation, safe from gun violence.

Today all of us at CT Against Gun Violence renew our pledge to do all that we can to make that goal a reality for everyone.