The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Ethan’s Law facing challenge to become new national standard
The parents of Ethan Song, the Guilford teen who died in 2018 while handling an unsecured gun, are hoping proposed federal gun reform legislation that includes provisions from Connecticut’s “Ethan’s Law” will move forward in the House and the Senate in the wake of the Uvalde elementary school shootings.
Michael Song appeared with U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., during a virtual news conference Wednesday touting the federal “Protecting Our Kids Act,” which would establish voluntary best practices for safe firearm storage, requirements to regulate the storage of firearms on residential premises, create new federal offenses for gun trafficking and straw purchasers and raise the legal age to purchase a semiautomatic centerfire rifle from 18 to 21 years old.
The proposed law was set for a “historic” vote on the House floor Wednesday night, DeLauro said.
“It’s Michael and Kristin who brought us to today,” DeLauro said.
The Songs had good support for Ethan’s Law in Connecticut. However, Michael Song and DeLauro conceded that getting gun reform passed through the U.S. Senate will be a challenge. The Song family — who will attend a Paul McCartney concert in Boston to hear one of Ethan’s favorite songs, “Let It Be” — understands that change takes time and often comes in small steps, Michael Song said.
“Every incremental step we take is moving toward a safer America,” Michael Song said. “We know everything is happening for a reason. My heroes are Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks. I know how long they waited.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, guns have become the top cause of death for children, surpassing accidents and cancer, DeLauro said.
“The statistics can not demonstrate more clearly what we have to do,” she said.
“It’s Michael and Kristin’s law that will keep kids across the country safe,” added DeLauro, who said the proposed bill would make Ethan’s Law the national standard for gun storage safety. “No parent should lose a child to an unsecured gun,” DeLauro said before recounting Kristin Song’s journey to the cemetery last week when she learned that the proposed legislation would be the subject of a vote before the House.
“She got out of her car yelling, ‘We did it! Your lifesaving legislation will get a vote!’” DeLauro said.
Michael Song said the law was about not allowing a bullet to separate parents from a child.
“It’s just common sense,” Michael Song said. “When kids are around, we have to keep guns locked down.”
The Songs were instrumental in the passage of Ethan’s Law, which requires firearms in Connecticut to be properly stored if there is the potential for a minor to gain access to the gun regardless of whether the weapon is loaded. The Connecticut law also changes the definition of a “minor” to anyone up to the age of 18. Under state law, teens had been classified as those 16 and under.
Ethan Song was 15 when he was fatally wounded while handling a .357 Magnum pistol at a neighbor’s house in 2018. The gun and two others were kept in a cardboard box inside a plastic container in the neighbor’s closet, according to state officials. The neighbor was not charged because state law did not stipulate that unloaded guns also needed to be secured, officials said.
“While each of the weapons were secured with operable gun locks, the keys and ammunition for the firearms were located inside of the same box,” Gov. Ned Lamont’s office said on the day Ethan’s Law was signed in 2019.
The proposed federal “Protecting Our Kids Act,” backed by DeLauro, would establish voluntary best practices for the safe storage of guns and award grants for Safe Firearm Storage Assistance Programs. It would also provide a tax incentive to dealers for 10 percent of amounts received from the sale of safe storage devices, the House Judiciary Committee Chair said in a statement following a June 2 vote to move the legislation forward.
The federal law would also establish federal requirements to regulate the storage of firearms in homes and create criminal penalties for violations of the requirements, House Judiciary Committee Chair U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler said.
The law would also ban the sale of large capacity magazines except under certain circumstances, tighten regulations regarding “ghost guns,” home-built firearms without a serial number and establish new federal offenses for gun trafficking.
“The American people are hungry for real solutions to the unconscionable wave of gun violence that is sweeping our country,” Nadler said in the release after the proposed legislation was voted out of committee. “The time for stalling, obstruction and obfuscation in the face of senseless killing after senseless killing is over. The bold package we passed today will not only help prevent the next Uvalde or Buffalo, it will also keep our communities and schools safer by addressing many of the loopholes that allow guns to fall into the wrong hands.”