Most gun-control measures out from Lamont’s crime bill

Gov. Ned Lamont's bill to address spiking gun violence in Connecticut cities advanced to the Senate floor on Thursday, but not before lawmakers removed the legislation's provisions to rein in illegal “ghost” guns and expand the state's existing ban on assault weapons.

The pared down version of Lamont's anti-crime bill was unveiled before the Judiciary Committee on Thursday, more than two weeks after Republicans and hundreds of anti-gun-control advocates sounded off against the governor's plans, which also included mandatory trigger locks, a state license for gun dealers and language allowing police to stop people openly carrying firearms to request to see their permits.

Nearly all of those provisions were stripped from the governor's bill, cutting its length from 52 pages to three.

The latest version of the bill includes $2.5 million over the next two years for a task force to work with neighboring states on investigating the proliferation of illegal guns flowing across state lines, as well as a new working group to study the “feasibility” of setting up a state licensing system for gun dealers.

Republicans on the committee, who had chafed at the bill's “onerous” gun restrictions, instead praised their Democratic counterparts for settling on a bipartisan agreement. All but two of the Republicans on the committee ultimately voted in favor of advancing the bill.

“It's great to see the collaborative effort … to put a bill forward that really strikes to the root problem of gun violence in this state, which is the criminal element of it,” said State Rep. Greg Howard, R- Stonington.

In response to the committee's action on Thursday, a spokesperson for the governor's office said, “Gov. Lamont still believes in the bill he proposed.”

Jeremy Stein, executive director of CT Against Gun Violence, said the decision to cut the most contentious aspects of the governor's proposal would allow lawmakers to focus on other legislation establishing a commission to oversee community antiviolence programs in cities like Hartford, New Haven and Bridgeport that are experiencing a surge in shootings and homicides.

“They have very limited time in a short session and they have to prioritize what is important and what they can get through, they can't do it all,” Stein said of lawmakers. “I think this is a message that this session we need to be really prioritizing community gun violence and that kind of tweaking our existing laws and making them stronger, maybe that can wait ‘till next session.”

Homicides in Connecticut rose to their highest level in nearly a decade in 2020, according to FBI crime statistics, even as overall levels of violent crime fell.

Experts say the sudden spike in gun violence across the nation in 2020 is likely correlated to job losses and declines in police presence caused by the pandemic, though the exact cause for the increase in shootings and homicides remains under debate. Homicide rates in Connecticut and the nation remain well below their peak in the early 1990s.

Republicans who opposed the governor's original package of antigun violence proposals faulted Democrats for ignoring an existing task force aimed at combating firearms trafficking, despite previous calls by Republican lawmakers to guarantee funding for the task force.

State Sen. Gary Winfield, D- New Haven, who co-chairs the Judiciary Committee, said criticism was misplaced, given that he and other Democrats had championed funding for the task force only to be hampered by a lack of available funding.

The new funding made available for the task force in the governor's legislation will come from the American Rescue Plan Act, passed by Congress last year.

“The budget process being what it was, we haven't prevailed, it looks like we may have the ability to prevail this year,” Winfield said. “This has been a long time coming, given what we see with shootings in our state.”

The latest version of Lamont's bill directs the task force to prepare an annual report for the governor and lawmakers, beginning in 2023, on the number of arrests and firearm seizures made by police working with their counterparts in nearby states.

The bill also creates a working group comprised of the state's Commissioner of Emergency Services and Public Protection along with representatives of the firearms industry to study the feasibility of creating a state licensing program for firearms dealers.

Republicans who voted in support of the bill expressed confidence that the working group will determine that such a program would be ineffective — many firearms dealers are already licensed by the federal government — rendering the proposal moot.