- A penalty for not reporting lost or stolen guns, paired with a one-gun-per-month limit. These kind of seem like things you would charge someone with after they'd shot someone else.
- A bill that would allow "any member of the State Bond Commission to put funding requests on the agenda for action", which may seem dull. However, the governor currently controls the agenda, causing Republicans to accuse Democrats of a power grab. This is the type of bill that Jodi Rell will veto--and the Democrats will not override.
You may also be interested in a discussion held with Rep. Mike Lawlor, who is head of the Judiciary Committee, on My Left Nutmeg yesterday. A lot of the conversation is about the Krayeske situation, but Lawlor also talked about the search for the next Chief Justice and other issues.
14 comments:
Some people have argued against the gun theft reporting law saying that gun owners wouldn't know when their gun was stolen.
I'm not convinced that's a good argument. Presumably, you would keep your gun within the house, not in the garage or the shed. So I just don't see that many instances where the owner wouldn't know that the gun was stolen. The owner should obviously keep the guns in a place where people couldn't readily access them.
The people who would comply with this sort of requirement aren't the ones whose guns are "stolen" or "lost." It's misdirected and ineffective piece of feel-good legislation.
I disagree with GC above - the bonding bill is about the only type of bill that the Democrats could override a veto on...
Freeing up the process at the Bonding Commission is one of the surest ways to eliminate the small amount of fiscal discipline that currently exists. Connecticut, with its $36 Billion in unfunded liabilities for retirement programs and already very high debt load, has more than enough difficult financial issues on the horizon. We don't need this.
>>Some people have argued against the gun theft reporting law saying that gun owners wouldn't know when their gun was stolen.
Quite likely the victim might be out of town when a such a theft occured, making "when" unknown.
Further, most firearm owners I know have a locker or even a firearm safe, often bolted to wall in the rear of a rarely used (and often locked) closet. This makes theft both difficult and unlikely; but it could also leave a theft undetected for a long period of time.
I have to agree with GMR on this one; if it can be stolen, it's not secure enough. I would wager that over 99% of stolen guns are not stolen from a safe by a complete stranger. If a criminal has the tools to open up a safe, they already have lethal weapons in their position without the gun; if they're getting the gun to sell it on the black market (more likely), why would they just take the gun and leave everything else undisturbed, especially considering the ability to open up safes gives a criminal the ability to make out really big with the right crime, which means they'd be looking for big money. And certainly, if the house IS disturbed because other things have been stolen, then it would be incumbent on the homeowner to check the valuables in their safe immediately.
In any case, the scenario of a cat burglar unsealing a safe, stealing only a gun, and disturbing absolutely nothing else in the household is highly implausible, particularly in an age of high- tech home security systems and surveillance.
This Governor,Just like Rowland, has used the threat of withholding bonding money on legislators who did their job by doing investigations of wrongdoing by people in the executive branch.
I'm very hopeful that the governors dictatorial powers over bonding will be broken and this will be the first override of many.
acr & anon 8:07,
According to the AP story, the bill doesn't penalize gun owners who fail to report a stolen gun because they were unaware it was stolen in the first place. It penalizes gun owners who fail to report a stolen gun within 72 hours of discovering it is missing.
A person who discovers their guns are stolen, but waits more than 3 days to report the theft to the police does not fall within any reasonable definition of "responsible gun owner." It pisses me off to see a spokesman for the Coalition of Connecticut Sportsmen criticizing this bill. Gun rights advocates would do a lot better to support laws, like this one, that implicitly acknowledge that there is such a thing as responsible gun ownership, while supporting penalties for irresponsible gun ownership. By failing to support reasonable bills that do not, in fact, curtail our 2nd amendment rights, we only embolden those who would like to throw the 2nd amendment out the window.
Keith-
Surprise, surprise.
The gun lobby has been giving incorrect information about this bill from the beginning of its conception.
You have to report that the gun was lost or stolen 72 hours after the gun owner discovers that the gun is missing.
If a gun owner is on vacation, and his gun was stolen, then he would not know that the gun was missing. However, once he comes home and looks for his gun only to discover that it is gone, then he must report it.
It would be up to the prosecutor to prove that the gun owner knew that the gun was missing. If the gun owner did not know the gun was missing, then he cannot be prosecuted.
ctkeith,
Where exactly are you getting your information about Rowland's Bond Commission practices? Certainly not from anyone who worked close to the proceedings because your claims are patently false and demonstrate that you have no actual knowledge of the process.
Rowland actually would allocate certain dollar amounts to caucus leaders. The leaders would then have to argue with their rank and file members over what particular local projects would get the funding.
Keith - Don't forget the caucus "slush funds", where they have control over millions to finance pet projects. Will they give this up if the can set some bond agenda items?
Proposals of this policy have usually provided that a gun owner must report the stolen firearm missing with a certain amount of time or a "reasonable time."
The fear among gun owners is that the government would abuse the "reasonable" standard and make criminals out of law-abiding citizens - based on someone else's decision on what "reasonable" means.
Gun owners tend to be collectors. Some have dozens, even hundreds, of firearms including antiques or different kinds of firearms for different types of sport, hunting or home defense purposes. Such a policy would, in practical terms, require gun owners to take inventory of their collection on a daily basis.
Such a requirement is not only impractical, but it is an unreasonable response which does not even address the underlying problems.
The real problem is that criminals, by definition, are people willing to break the law. A new law is not going to make them suddenly become proper citizens. Criminals already obtain their guns illegally. They will continue to do so even if this law is passed.
It's not the 'lost or stolen...'portion of this bill that is nfg, it's the 'one per month...' remember there's no such thing as compromise when we talk 'gun control', it just, 'you give up some more of your consitutional rights....' 'I'll promise you some more security...', that's no comprromise, it's giving up a hard fact for a promise.....
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