Gun group files suit over pistol permit delays in four Conn. cities
A Connecticut gun rights group on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against four of the state’s largest cities on behalf of four residents, alleging their municipal police departments delayed the residents’ appointment or applications for pistol permits.
The suit, filed by the Connecticut Citizen’s Defense League in federal court, names the police chiefs or acting police chiefs of Hartford, New Haven, Bridgeport and Waterbury as defendants.
New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker denounced the suit in a statement, saying the group had previously opposed “common sense gun safety legislation which enjoyed bipartisan support,” such as laws restricting home built “ghost guns,” and laws expanding safe storage requirements and background checks.
“My priorities are keeping our residents safe – not profiteering for gun retailers and manufacturers. Last week a fourteen-year-old boy was gunned down in our city, this is unconscionable,” Elicker said.
To get a pistol permit in the state, applicants have to first apply for a “municipal permit” from their local police department, the complaint states.
The state’s strict gun laws also prevent residents from purchasing a gun without first obtaining either a pistol permit, or an eligibility certificate for either pistols or long guns. Once they have received the temporary permit, a resident can then apply for a full state permit, which allows them to carry a gun on them.
CCDL’s lawsuit focuses on the municipal process, claiming that under the chiefs’ leadership, the four police departments “have administratively slowed to the point of an effective shut down” the permitting process.
The lawsuit asks for an injunction against the four police departments “to change the rules, customs, policies, practices, and procedures” under which applicants can apply for a municipal firearm permit.
It also asks for the court to compel the departments “to timely take the fingerprints and process the applications” for permits, along with judgments asserting the delays violate CCDL members’ rights, unspecified damages and attorneys’ fees.
Renee Dominguez, New Haven’s acting police chief, said the department is working to process pistol permit applications, but the department also has to work around safety measures related to the pandemic.
“The New Haven Police Department is dedicated to protecting the safety of our community and our citizen’s constitutional rights, including their Second Amendment rights,” Dominguez said in a statement. “However, we are also operating in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, which requires appropriate safety measures. The New Haven Police Department is working diligently and with new protocols that will help facilitate the processing of pistol permit applications, but is also focused on its core mission to keep our community safe.
A spokesman for Waterbury police chief Fernando Spagnolo declined to comment Tuesday. A spokeswoman for the city of Bridgeport declined to comment, saying the suit is a “complex legal matter” that had yet to be reviewed. A Hartford police spokesman deferred the matter to the city attorney.
In three cases, the suit claims the Hartford, New Haven and Bridgeport police departments did not even accept the applications of three of the plaintiffs in the suit.
One of the plaintiffs, Anne Cordero, a New Haven resident, was told to sign up online for an appointment to submit her application, according to the suit. When she did so, the earliest appointment date she found was in March of next year.
By then “the fingerprints she already paid to have taken would be stale, and that she would then be required to pay a second time and have a fresh set of fingerprints taken in order to submit her application,” the lawsuit claims.
A fourth plaintiff, Jamie Eason, submitted his application to Waterbury police in August and was told it would take 11 months to process it. Under state law, local police are supposed to inform applicants if they have been approved or denied within eight weeks.
The suit also notes that twelve other states allow Connecticut pistol permit holders to carry guns in those states as part of reciprocal agreements. Of the 36 remaining states that issue firearm permits, Connecticut residents can apply for non-resident permits to carry a gun, according to the suit.
“Without a state-issued firearm permit, Connecticut citizens like the applicants and similarly situated CCDL members will not be afforded the right to apply for a nonresident firearm permit in those remaining states,” the suit claims. “...Therefore the Applicants and similarly situated CCDL members are prevented from even being able to apply to lawfully carry firearms in those states.”
CCDL previously sued the state over Gov. Ned Lamont’s executive order limiting fingerprinting during the pandemic. A judge struck down the fingerprinting order last June, a decision that was later reversed in an appeals court ruling.