Democrats in the Connecticut House of Representatives gave their stamp of approval to a bill being pushed by Gov. Ned Lamont that would ban the sale of new Glocks and other striker-fired semi-automatic pistols that can be converted to full-auto through the illegal installation of a switch.
Similar language has already been enshrined into law in California, and several other Democrat-run states, including Maryland, have taken aim at the popular pistols as well.
Republican lawmakers in the Connecticut House tried to push back on the measure, but were simply outnumbered when it came time to count the votes.
“Anytime you are taking a legal product and saying it could be used illegally but that hasn’t happened yet, but we are going to affect it with legislation is bad public policy,” said Rep. Craig Fishbein, R-Judiciary Committee ranking member.
Officials say more of these converted guns are showing up.
Yet gun groups say it punishes the wrong people.
“When you look at millions of firearms in the state and you see 50 arrests in a year, while it’s a problem, it’s not the majority. It’s 99 percent of people doing the right thing,” said Matt Strasser, CCDL vice president.
Strasser isn’t wrong. The problem is that anti-gun Democrats don’t see it that way.
First, many of them think that simply exercising your right to keep and bear arms is doing the wrong thing, no matter what type of gun you own. But anti-gunners will also use any excuse they can to ban commonly-owned arms. It’s a feature, not a bug, that the vast majority of lawful gun owners lose access to new Glocks and other striker-fired pistols because a couple dozen gang members and violent offenders have used switches that are already illegal under state and federal law to convert semi-automatic firearms into full-auto machine pistols.
Law enforcement will still be able to purchase these handguns, for reasons that I suspect even the bill’s sponsor couldn’t articulate. Police officers can lose guns or have them stolen too, but if cops weren’t exempt then police chiefs across Connecticut might actively oppose the legislation. From the gun control perspective, it’s better just to give police a pass so those chiefs will support the bill, or at least remain neutral.
California’s ban is already facing a lawsuit, and the National Shooting Sports Foundation has vowed litigation if Maryland Gov. Wes Moore signs the pistol ban into law as well. If Connecticut’s bill is signed by Lamont, I’m sure that it too will be subject to a legal challenge.
The obvious answer to combatting the illegal conversion of semi-automatic pistols is to zealously prosecute those who use an illegally converted gun in the commission of a crime. That runs counter to the Democrats’ ideology, though. During floor debate on the Glock ban bill, sponsor Steve Stafstrom bragged about reducing Connecticut’s prison population by 50%, which in large part is because of the same reduction in violent crime that we’re seeing nationwide.
It’s great that fewer crimes are being committed in the state, but the legislature’s goal shouldn’t be to empty the prisons. It should be ensuring that there are serious consequences for those who do commit violent offenses. Instead of making that their priority, Stafstrom and his fellow Democrats are aiming to eradicate the lawful commerce in some of the most popular arms in Connecticut, and Wednesday’s vote takes them one step closer to implementing their strategy.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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