Connecticut isn’t the most gun-friendly venue in America. In fact it’s frequently mentioned when running down the roster of the usual suspects, states with the strictest, most rights-infringing gun control laws in the country. You know them; California, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, yadda, yadda, yadda.
And if there’s anywhere in Connecticut you’d expect a sympathetic ear toward still more limits on the right to keep and bear arms, it would be in Newtown, site of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooing. So when the Newtown Action Alliance gun control group proposed three new gun control restrictions (a ban on open carry, banning open carry on town property, and a ban on possession within 1000 feet of a demonstration), you might think passing the measures would have been a slam dunk.
It wasn’t.
The Newtown Action Alliance was at the Legislative Council meeting to flak for the proposed gun control ordinances, but so was the National Shooting Sports Foundation — which happens to be based in Newtown — along with the Connecticut Citizens Defense League. And the result was a narrow win…a 6-6 tie among the council members which wasn’t enough to move the measures forward.
From the Associated Press:
“The Newtown Action Alliance proposed to infringe upon people’s constitutional right to keep and bear arms,” said Mark Oliva, a spokesperson for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, which represents firearm manufacturers, retailers and sportsmen’s groups. “We’re pleased that Newtown’s Legislative Council chose to preserve people’s right to protect themselves.”
The Newtown Action Alliance’s Po Murray didn’t take the defeat well, equating gun owners with…naturally…white supremacists.
“It’s disheartening and disappointing to live in a community where the leaders are choosing not to take our recommendations seriously, particularly after what we’ve been through in this community,” said Po Murray, a local resident and chair of the alliance.
“As white extremism is spreading across the country where they are using guns to intimidate people, particularly the Black Lives Matter movement, I think it’s really important to preemptively take measures to prevent any type of incidents here in Newtown,” she said Friday.
The gun control industry never misses an opportunity to draw bogus comparisons equating law-abiding gun owners with racism and violent extremism.
We never thought one of the most heart shattering school shootings could happen in Sandy Hook but it did. Newtown’s elected officials should be working to protect us from armed intimidation instead of dismissing our genuine concerns. https://t.co/1DE3IjNunA
— Po Murray (@po_murray) December 4, 2020
Uh huh…”armed intimidation.” Murray’s alleged feelings don’t get to trump her fellow citizens’ constitutional rights.
As for the rest, nevermind how rare instances of racist-driven violence actually are in America, it’s become a standard tactic of the Civilian Disarmament Industrial Complex and the anti-gun left and Murray wasn’t going to have a chat with an AP reporter and let that well-worn tool go unused.
Holly Sullivan, president of the Connecticut Citizens Defense League, said while gun control advocates may have felt intimidated by gun rights supporters carrying firearms, that is not the intent of gun owners. She has been among the counterprotesters outside the foundation’s headquarters.
Connecticut law allows the open carrying of handguns and long guns. Owners must have handgun permits or long gun eligibility certificates, both of which require background checks and training.
Nothing “extremist” there. In the end, the Legislative Council voted to send one of the three proposed ordinances — the proposed ban on open carry on town property — to a local attorney for a legal opinion.
Like most of the other usual suspect states, Connecticut doesn’t have a state preemption law, so Newtown would have been free to enact the restrictions if they’d gotten the necessary Council support. But that didn’t happen. At least not this time. We’ll see what the town’s counsel says about the legality of the proposed ordinance. And Murray and her pals will almost certainly keep trying. It’s what they do.