Taking stock of who funds gun lobby

It’s time to take a weapon away from the gun lobby. For years, the NRA has recognized the potency of arming political candidates with cash. It’s a sound investment for the group, as members of Congress they finance return the favor by blocking sensible gun legislation.

Months after the 2012 slaughter of 26 students and staff at Sandy Hook Elementary School, it wasn’t Connecticut that reconsidered its own investments, but California.

The California State Teachers’ Retirement System declared its intentions to pull investments from gun manufacturers of firearms that are illegal in that state. That was in 2013. It took more than two years before California navigated through the firearms divestment.

Connecticut has not even started. After the shooting deaths of 17 more people at a high school in Parkland Fla., on Valentine’s Day, Connecticut state Sen. Gayle Slossberg, a Milford Democrat, posed a question to State Treasurer Denise Nappier that should have been on the minds of many state leaders over the past five years: Does Connecticut’s pension fund include investments in gun manufacturers?

The short answer is yes. The longer answer includes the detail that a little more than $4 million is invested in Vista Outdoor, a Massachusetts manufacturer of the AR-15 style assault weapon, a gun of choice for mass shooters.

That’s not even the most troubling answer. That privilege goes to Nappier herself, who summoned this disquieting response to Slossberg:

“Should the proliferation of gun violence persist, and further compromise the safety of our young people, our communities and our long-term shareholder value, following a period of stepped up shareholder activism I will proceed to divest or not make further investments in gun companies as the most prudent course of action,” Nappier said.

Consider those first seven words: “Should the proliferation of gun violence persist.”

There is no reasonable argument that it has not persisted. Further, we had our motivation on Dec. 14, 2012.

Those aren’t the only troubling words in Nappier’s statement. She also lost us at “Further compromise the safety of our young people,” only to punctuate her callous line of logic by equating the lives of children with “our long-term shareholder value.”

It is certainly challenging to stand on the highest moral ground regarding investments, which can include everything from drug companies to Big Tobacco. But even 0.05 percent of the $30 billion Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust Fund for teachers and other state employees is too much.

New Jersey lawmakers took steps toward gun divestments last week. The head of the Connecticut teachers’ union wants the same here.

It may not make a major difference, but dollars and cents have a way of adding up, and may be the most powerful ammunition in this fight. Everyone on the side of gun reform might want to take a closer look at their own portfolios.

It’s not a matter of bringing money to the gun fight, but taking it away.

Those aren’t the only troubling words in Nappier’s statement. She also lost us at “Further compromise the safety of our young people,” only to punctuate her callous line of logic by equating the lives of children with “our long-term shareholder value.”