Bob, Please copy the CCS membership.

I attended the event sponsored by CAGV this afternoon
at the Lyceum Center in Hartford.

There was no public speaking forum, as it was a
moderated event
by Dr. Bradley, the President of CAGV who only had
cards with questions collected from the audience of
about 75 people.

I was only able to positively identify one other
shooting sportsman at the event besides myself and
believe there was one other. The rest of the audience
consisted of the usual CAGV cadre of elderly women and
a fair number of local residents of Hartford

The panel consisted of:


* Brian Malte: Brady Campaign's state lobbyist

* Mayor Eddie Perez of Hartford

* Joe Vince (ATF ret)

* Chief James Berry, Manchester PD

* Ron Pinciaro, Co-executive director of CAGV

Lisa Labella of CAGV was also present

The legislative "responder panel" consisted of:

Sen. Andrea Stillman

Rep. Ken Green (not Len Greene)

Rep. James Spallone

Rep. Robert Farr

Rep. Mike Lawlor (HJud co-chair)

Sen. McDonald (Jud. co-chair)


The Hartford police chief was also in attendence in
uniform stating openly that he is a supporter of the
Brady Campaign and was accompanied by a number of
higher ranking Hartford PD officers in uniform

The main message was to stop gun trafficing with
secondary
themes addressing: LONG GUN registration (Lawlor);
Stolen Gun reporting mandates (all); SMART GUNS,
serialized bullet tracking/tracing; one-gun-per-month
(Malte of Brady Campaign);
AMMUNITION RESTRICTIONS /LICENSING AND QUANTITY OF
PURCHASE RESTRICTIONS - - Chief Berry of Manchester;
AMMUNITION SIN TAX proposed by Senator McDonald

Chief Berry continued on his anti-gun tirade - in
uniform AND wearing his handgun off duty and outside
of Manchester stating that he is an NRA instructor but
believes most people don't take gun ownership
seriously enough and wants limts imposed on buying
ammo. He continued with the argument that England and
Japan have
less gun crime than the US.

Joe Vince was among the more logical sounding
panelists suggesting that enforcement and intelligence
should be streamlined adn improved to solve gun crimes
and suggested that police should be more concerned
about the "gang member with the .380 than a secondary
long gun sale at a gun show"

Rep. Robert Farr did state during the panel discussion
that one of the problems CT has is 30,000 outstanding
warrants that need to be persued ; 6,000 of which are
for felonies and 2,000 of those belonging to Hartford,
alone.

I submitted a series of well written questions
relevant to the topics discussed and the only one Dr.
Bradley used from my inex card was "Why do we need
more gun laws - why not enforce existing
laws" To that end, Mike Lawlor answered to the effect
that they
weren't really seeking new laws but wanted to "close
the loopholes" on existing ones.

Ron Pinciaro displayed contradictory themes
during his remarks opening with " we're not here to
take guns away from citizens - we're not gun grabbers"

His closing remark was: "The guns that are being sold
today are not hunting or sporting guns, they're
designed to kill - they're semi-automatic and 9mms,
etc."

That was the end of the forum

Expect movement on TRAFFICING; LONG GUN REGISTRATION
and STOLEN GUN REPORTING legislation soon and be
prepared to monitor the other items.

Regards,


Steve

Steve,

When they spoke about the Ammunition Restriction , what do they like to see happen with that.

There were two remarks in that category. One was by Chief Berry of Manchester, CT police. He simply said " Without bullets, guns don't work" "Let's limit how much ammo can be bought"

The other was Sen McDonald of Stamford (co-chair of the Judiciary Committee) to the effect a sin tax shoudl be added - similar to the failed proposal in California. He said" Let's make ammo too costly for people to buy"

I can see how this would crimp our lifestyle - but how the hell will it reduce crime? As if criminals give a shit how much ammo costs?

I was hiding in the back, I was incognito as usual.  I walked from the HC building so when I got there and saw the "no guns" sign I wasn't about to walk 2 blocks all the way back to the Jeep.

It took me all of about 3 seconds to figure out who Steve was though.  

I woulda stopped and said "Hi" but I had to haul ass to aftercare to pick up Jr.  

All in all it was just a bunch of people stroking their own egos.  The manditory reporting looks like it's going to be the big push this year, along with eliminating secondary sales of long guns.

Was anything mentioned about Magazine Capacity?

No. They didn't focus on the classic "assault weapon", "hi capacity" arguments (although if you carefully read my summary, you will see that Ron Pinciaro of CAGVhad a "Freudian Slip" near the end of the presentations)

The focus was largely  centered on gun trafficking, gun owner responsibility to report lost/stolen firearms
and the AMMO LIMITS/AMMO TAX were sort of tossed in as a brain storming measure by Chief Berry of Manchester and Sen. McDonald of Stamford who co chairs the Judiciary Committee

Brian Malte from the Brady Campaign was the first presenter. His push was for the one gun per month/smart guns and micro-marking/serialization of ammo.

CAGV had the usual bullshit about how much gun violence affects suburban as well as urban areas, how it has increased since 2002 (because the gangsters are out of prison, that's why) and their flagrant crap about how "Gun owners also want more gun control" That's interesting because they never cite the details of their "surveys" other than mentioning it was done by Sacred Heart University. They had charts up showing the COST of gun crime, demographic/racial percentages, etc.

Mayor Perez made blatant statements about how much he hates guns and they were all pretty much self aggrandizing idiots .  Channel 61 news covered it.

Their main point seemed to be to "shame" gun owners for the actions of criminals blaming us for
the "stolen" gun issues.  The ATF retired agent Vince, was actually one of the few logical people there, mentioning that something like a fraction of one percent of gun dealers were bad and resulted in trafficking and straw purchases, etc. and that focus needs to be on better collective intelligence and collaberation among law enforcement.

One of the panelists began to mention how ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS were a substantial part of the problem and a significant percentage of the prison population and this was quickly mumbled off and diverted attention back to gun owners again.


The biggest idiot award goes to Chief James Berry of Manchester , CT Police. His message was "I am an NRA instructor and I try to discourage people from owning firearms. Let's restrict ammo."
This man is truly ignorant about the subject .

(Like a criminal cares about ammo any more than guns?)

I have to repeat what Rep. Robert Farr said. This is closer to the source of the problem:

"There are 30,000 outstanding warrants in CT. 6,000 are for FELONIES and 2,000 of the felony warrants are for HARTFORD alone" (suggesting - why don't we start there)


That really caused Eddie Perez to nash his teeth and grimace while his Brady Bunch loving police
chief lowered his head during that comment

I also need to mention the comments of two, community activists in Hartford, local people who work in their communities.

One was Hartford's Reverend Brown who was quoted on WTNH news after the double homicide at the grocery "We know who the bad guys are - let's put them away"

The other was a local activist named Lewis who was interviewed on the street by Channel 61 and said
"It doesn't matter how many laws are passed - the criminals will still commit crime"

These people are not necessarily defending gun ownership, per se - but it STILL HELPS US because they're talking about the REAL problem : Gangs and Crime

Glad I didn't go. Making the 1.5 hour trip through tree-infested roads only to find I couldn't speak would have pissed me off.

Sounds like a circle-jerk for the antis, pure and simple.

Thanks TimJ for making a sticky for the announcement of the event.

We will be on the lookout for what comes out of the legislature in the next few weeks.
I'll be sure to post any developments and/or public hearning announcements.

Again, watch out for LONG GUN REGISTRATION, SECOND HAND SALES OF LONG GUNS TREATED AS HANDGUNS, STOLEN/LOST REPORTING MANDATES and as always, watch out
for the tricks they will pull inside those bills like .50 bans, expanded AW bans, etc.

Why can't WE have our own, one sided event on this issue ?

Seriously, we all pay NRA dues why doesn't the NRA send their representative up to Hartford and we can have a panel discussion about the same thing? Bring a panel of pro-gun ;law enforcement officers and represenetatives from the Pro gun side of the aisle and talk about enforcing existing laws and putting criminals away?

(No one would come?)

And, in the anticipation of antigunners being present in the audience - collect index cards and pick and choose the questions?