by Donald Eng CTNewsJunkie
HARTFORD, CT — A bill increasing restrictions on certain types of guns and gun components cleared the state House Wednesday and will now head to the Senate.
House Bill 5043, a priority of Gov. Ned Lamont, passed the chamber on an 86-64 vote after about two hours of debate, with 13 Democrats joining all the Republicans in opposition.
“We in Connecticut have shown over the past 15 years that we have been smart on crime and tough on guns,” said state Rep. Steve Stafstrom, D-Bridgeport, who chairs the Judiciary Committee. “What that has done is it has allowed us to cut our prison population in half, and also to cut our violent crime in half, where Connecticut is now the third or fourth safest state in the country. It’s because we’re here every year pushing to try to keep up with the pace of the advent and the modifications that the firearms industry is making.”
Among other things, the bill bans the sale of handguns that can be converted to fire fully automatically by the installation of a “converter.” The bill further defines a converter as “ any device or instrument that, when installed in or attached to the rear of the slide of a semiautomatic pistol, interferes with the trigger mechanism, and in so doing enables the pistol to discharge a number of shots or bullets rapidly or automatically with one continuous pull of the trigger.”
The bill would not affect such guns already owned.
Republicans though reiterated their argument that these converters, also called switches, are already illegal to make and own.
“California passed a very similar law a couple of years ago … Glock came out with a new design, and within 48 hours, that was found to be fallible,” said Rep. Craig Fishbein, R-Wallingford, the ranking House Republican on the Judiciary. “So you’re constantly chasing the rabbit of something that is already illegal.”
Following the vote, the group CT Against Gun Violence lauded the act as a monumental step forward in public safety.
Earl Bloodworth, the group’s executive director, said for too long technology had been allowed to outpace laws while families paid the price in grief and trauma.
This bill is more than just a policy change; it is a promise to the mother in New Haven and the student in Hartford that their lives matter more than a loophole. By stopping these rapid-fire weapons before they hit our streets, we are choosing to protect the living and honor those we have already lost to the cycles of violence we are working so tirelessly to break.”