Mark Mattioli lost his 6-year old son James to the madman in Newtown, Connecticut. Today, he testified before the Gun Violence (sic) Task Force of the state legislature. His testimony was moving and not exactly what gun control proponents were expecting to hear.
You can see the highlights of his testimony below:
The National Shooting Sports Foundation has issued an action alert regarding a public hearing in Connecticut on gun control. The Gun Violence (sic) Prevention Working Group Public Hearing will be held next Monday, January 28th, at 10am in Room 2C of the Legislative Office Building in Hartford. This may be the only time to testify regarding many of the draconian gun control proposals being floated.
Legislators in Hartford are in the process of destroying your Second Amendment rights by exploiting recent tragedies. Gov. Malloy, Sen. Beth Bye, and Rep. Bob Godfrey want outright bans and onerous restrictions on your rights through an enormous number of Anti-Gun Bills. Here are a few of the items included in one of their proposals:
An outright ban on ALL modern sporting rifles classifying them as “Assault Weapons.”
Restricting your ability to defend yourself and family by arbitrarily restricting the magazine size to 10 rounds.
Confiscating ALL magazines holding more than 10 rounds, pistols included.
Statewide gun registration for ALL firearms; knowing full well criminals won’t ever register their guns.
Re-registration every 2 years with ever increasing fees.
Requires permit for any rifle with a pistol grip.
Limiting how much ammunition you can purchase AND possess.
Registration of all ammunition purchases.
Bans internet sales of ammo in Connecticut.
Mandatory gun storage laws, like the one the U.S. Supreme Court struck down in the Heller decision.
There will only be a few opportunities for discussion and opposition as many in Hartford are trying to pass legislation as quickly as possible. The first hearing (and may be the only time to testify) will occur next Monday, Jan. 28, at 10 a.m. at the Legislative Office Building.
Gun Violence Prevention Working Group Public Hearing
Monday, Jan. 28, 2013
Legislative Office Building
10 a.m., Room 2CNSSF is urging all gun owners, sportsmen and hunters to attend Monday’s public hearing to be held in the Legislative Office Building in Room 2C at 10 a.m. and to contact their state representative, senator and all members of the Committee immediately, urging them to oppose knee-jerk reaction legislation.
Find your elected officials here.
If this bill passes, law-abiding gun owners will have to begin surrendering their magazines and possibly modern sporting rifles, or face confiscation by the state police and a felony charge. Again, this proposal would make simple possession of a legally owned firearm or magazine a felony.
This draconian measure will also affect non-gun owners as all Connecticut tax payers will be forced to foot the bill for the extraordinary process of having police confiscate — from law-abiding citizens — AND registration databases.
Making matters worse, Connecticut manufacturers including Colt, Mossberg, Stag Arms, Mec-Gar, OKAY Industries, Ruger and Metalform will be directly affected by this legislation. That means a loss of jobs and tax revenue to the state.
Here are a few of the other pieces of legislation under consideration:
HB 5268, SB140 – To require firearm owners to maintain liability insurance and establish a sales tax on the sale of ammunition at a rate of 50 percent and require all ammunition to be purchased in person.
SB 122 – A class C felony offense for any person or organization to purchase, sell, donate, transport, possess or use any gun except one made to fire a single round.
SB 124 – Prohibit the possession of magazines that accept more than ten rounds.
Don’t let legislators trample your rights. Let your voice be heard now.
Please contact members of the Task Force listed below. These are the main numbers so please ask for the legislator’s office.
Sen. Martin Looney, Co-chair 860-240-8600
Rep. Craig Miner, Co-chair 860-240-8700
Rep. Gerald Fox III 860-240-8500
Rep. Stephen Dargan 860-240-8500
Rep. Bob Godfrey 860-240-8500
Rep. Toni Walker 860-240-8500
Rep. Rosa Rebimbas 860-240-8700
Rep. Janice Giegler 860-240-8700
Rep. Dan Carter 860-240-8700
Sen. Eric Coleman 860-240-8600
Sen. John Fonfara 860-240-8600
Sen. Joan Hartley 860-240-8600
Sen. John Kissel 860-240-8800
Sen. Scott Frantz 860-240-8800
Sen. Tony Guglielmo 860-240-8800
Sen. Kevin Witkos 860-240-8800
Not trying to be overly snarky but I don’t see anything in those proposals that forces troubled young men living in million dollar homes with single mothers to get mental health treatment. I would think that existing Connecticut state law might just cover killing your mom and stealing her guns.
I don’t usually comment on things like this but I’ll make an exception here. For the last 4 1/2 years of her life, my mother was in a nursing home with dementia. The nurses and CNAs took exceptional care of her for which I’ll always be grateful.
Thus, when I read about a story like this one from Connecticut involving unionized nursing homes and workers affiliated with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), it makes my blood boil.
“In the hours leading up to the strike by the New England Health Care Employees Union, District 1199 SEIU (the Union) against five HealthBridge Management Health Care Centers in Connecticut, Union members engaged in multiple illegal and dangerous acts against Center residents,” reads a statement released by HealthBridge on Tuesday afternoon.
According to police reports obtained by The Daily Caller and reported Monday by the RedState blog, HealthBridge Management Health Care Centers alleged that union employees in at least three of its facilities intentionally mixed up or removed patient name plates, photos, medical bracelets and dietary advisories as they began their strike. Additionally, the police reports include allegations of both vandalism and larceny.
The median daily cost for a nursing home care in Connecticut last year was $385 per day. By contrast, the national median is $213 per day while the median cost in North Carolina is $190 per day.
There is absolutely no excuse for ever putting the patient’s health at risk, union work action or no union work action. As I said in the headline, there is a special place in hell for these people.
The proposed ban on magazines with greater than 10-round capacities, SB 1094, has essentially died in committee. As the Hartford Courant reports, the bill had to have passed out of committee by this past Friday to have been considered as a stand alone bill. That said, it could be added as an amendment to an existing bill in the future.
SB 1094 would not only have banned the sale of standard capacity magazines, it would have outlawed their possession and would have required owners to turn them into their local police departments within 90 days. Failure to turn in the magazines would have been a felony if the law had passed.
As reported a month ago, the bill attracted a lot of opposition with many people testifying before the Joint Judiciary Committee of the General Assembly. It also brought forth statements from some Connecticut mayors and police chiefs that were studies in willful ignorance.
Senator John Kissell, the ranking Republican on the committee, says that the number of people who took the time to testify against it was an important factor in it dying in committee.
To Kissel, the committee’s decision to let the proposal die proves that public opinion can affect public policy. “We’re always open to listening to our constituents,” he said. “When over 200 people are willing to spend 12 hours at a public hearing, it has a huge impact.”
There is no word yet if the bill’s sponsors will try to attach it as an amendment to another bill. For now, it is a loss for gun control advocates and Mayor Bloomberg’s Illegal Mayors.
The Connecticut General Assembly is considering SB 1094, An Act Banning Large Capacity Ammunition Magazines. This bill would not only ban any magazine with a capacity greater than 10 rounds but would give owners of these magazines 90 days within which they must turn them in to the police. Failure to do so would be a felony. There would be no grandfathering of magazines that were possessed prior to the enactment of the bill. As usual in these bans, the ban would only apply to the general public and not to law enforcement officers.
The Joint Judiciary Committee of the General Assembly held hearings yesterday on SB 1094. As reported in the Hartford Courant, the hearings drew a great number of people both for and against the bill. Unlike in the old Bill Ruger days, the current President of Ruger Firearms, Michael Fifer came out strongly against the bill. James Debney, President of the Firearms Division of Smith and Wesson, reminded the legislature of the number of jobs that could be lost if the bill passed. He made special note that the state had a number of magazine manufacturers including C Products and MecGar.
However, it is the testimony in support of the bill which contains the wild statements, willful ignorance, and hyperbole. As I noted earlier, SB 1094 does not apply to law enforcement who would continue to have standard capacity magazines.
From Bridgeport Police Chief Joseph Gaudett:
Just as you correctly realized there is NO REASON for the general public to possess Assault Weapons, that same basic logic must be applied to the large capacity magazines.
There is no reason whatsoever that hunters or sportsmen or collectors or the public at large should have large capacity magazines. Their purpose is singular and deadly, and makes no sense at all for general public use.
From State Senator Gary LeBeau, Deputy President Pro Tempore of the Senate:
High capacity magazines are designed to enable shooting mass numbers of people quickly and efficiently without reloading. They have been used in numerous mass shootings, including Tucson, Virginia Tech, Fort Hood, Columbine and last summer, Manchester, Connecticut. These high capacity magazines are simply not useful for hunting or self-defense
And from the mayors of Bridgeport (Bill Finch), Hartford (Pedro Segarra), and New Haven (John DeStefano) comes this screed. I should note that all three are members of Mayor Bloomberg’s Illegal Mayors group.
Large capacity ammunition magazines are designed to enable shooting mass numbers of people quickly and efficiently without reloading.
As our work is not done, we must continue our efforts to keep these high-capacity magazines out of the hands of the general public.
The two phrases that come up continually in their testimony are “general public” and “enable shooting mass numbers of people”. When they say “general public”, it tells me the political class – and I add the police chief in this category – does not trust the people of their state. A political class that has so little respect for the people needs to be replaced.
The “enable shooting mass numbers of people” is just hyperbole and willful ignorance. It is right up there with saying a standard capacity magazine is not needed for self-defense because the only reason you need more is that you can’t shoot straight. If that was the case, then why do trained law enforcement officers need standard capacity magazines? Presumably they are trained and must pass marksmanship qualifications on a regular basis.
I plain flat out just don’t like Dick Blumenthal of Connecticut.
Reason number one is that Blumenthal lied about serving in South Vietnam so as to burnish his credentials with veterans. He has since said he “misspoke” and has offered a half-hearted apology.
My dad, who would be 91 this year if he was still alive, served two full-year tours of duty in Vietnam. He was old in comparative terms when he went there in 1967 for the first tour and even older the second time. By my estimate, he was 48 when he went over there the first time. While he was not an infantryman humping a ruck in the boonies, he was in a war zone. Moreover, he was there for the Tet Offensive where no place in the whole God forsaken country was safe.
Dad had to take a medical retirement in 1972 because his body was too worn out to effectively serve in the Army. In retrospect, a lot of his ailments like angina were stress related. Not PTSD but just plain old stress which took its toll on his middle-aged body. He died nine years later from congestive heart failure. He had just turned 62 a few days earlier.
I missed out having a father around during much of my childhood and adolescence. My dad was serving overseas and we didn’t or couldn’t accompany him on those tours of duty. It is what it is. Obviously, I don’t blame Blumenthal for this but his lies about serving in Vietnam just infuriate me.
I didn’t know too much about his opponent Linda McMahon except of her connection with pro wrestling. However, reading her campaign bio I found out that she is a native of New Bern, North Carolina and is a a graduate of East Carolina University.
Being from eastern NC and going to ECU puts Linda McMahon a whole lot closer to the average person and their concerns than being a graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law like Blumenthal. Call that reverse snobbery, if you will, but I think we as a nation have for too long put too much credence in an Ivy League degree. Just look at the state in which the so-called elites have put this country. Enough is enough.
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