2021 Legislative Agenda
With the delay in achieving our 2020 agenda due to the pandemic, CAGV is again focused on strengthening Connecticut’s Extreme Risk Protect Order law to better prevent suicide and homicide by those at risk of imminent harm to themselves or others. The Judiciary Committee has committed to raising a bill. Learn more about the measures we are calling for here.
To reduce the interpersonal violence plaguing cities and disproportionately victimizing communities of color, CAGV is continuing its campaign to launch the CT Initiative to Prevent Community Gun Violence, which would establish a state-level grant-making authority to fund community-based violence prevention programs. Read more about the CT Initiative here.
2020 Legislative Session
CAGV headed into the 2020 legislative session with two priorities: preventing gun suicide, which accounts for a majority of Connecticut gun deaths, and pursuing non-legislative means to reduce community gun violence, which accounts for the majority of gun homicide in the state, and is concentrated in our largest cities.
HB-5448, An Act Concerning a Risk Protection Order, was raised in the Judiciary Committee to strengthen our Extreme Risk Protection Order law (passed in 1999, the first state in the country to do so). ERPOs are a means of last resort for removing guns from individuals who are at risk of imminent harm to themselves or others. The bill included reforms to add further protections against suicide and homicide by high-risk gun owners. Learn more about HB-5448 here.
The legislative session was suspended in March due to the pandemic, so there was no further action on the bill.
To address street-level violence, CAGV proposed the CT Initiative to Prevent Community Gun Violence, calling on the state to establish a grant-making authority to fund community-based violence prevention programs. The initiative was announced in this op-ed.
With the legislature in recess, CAGV pivoted towards building momentum for the CT Initiative ahead of the 2021 legislative session. We received pledges from 115 candidates running for the CT General Assembly to support the CT Initiative if elected, and our supporters sent more than 1,000 emails to Gov. Lamont and legislators calling on them to make the CT Initiative a reality.
2019 Legislative Session
History was made in 2019 when we passed three bills in one session; something that had never been done before. Safe Storage (Home), Safe Storage (Vehicles) , and Ghost Guns were passed with strong bipartisan majorities. In fact, more legislators voted for Ethan’s Law (HB7218) than any gun bill in the state’s history. This was a huge win for Connecticut. Learn more from our 2019 Legislative Session Recap and see how your legislators voted on all three bills here.
2018 Legislative Session
On October 1, 2018 Connecticut’s ban on bump stocks took effect. Passed in response to the horrific mass shooting at a concert in Las Vegas, the worst in the nation’s history, Public Act No. 18-29 prohibits the sale, transfer or possession of any “rate of fire enhancement.”
Practically, this would prohibit individuals from converting semi-automatic rifles into the equivalent of machine guns, as the Las Vegas shooter did to kill 58 and injure more than 500. The ban requires all individuals in Connecticut to destroy or otherwise dispose of any bump stock or similar devices they possessed before October 1, 2018.
If you would like to stay up to date on how you can advocate for our legislative agenda, please sign up for our email alerts here.
