Over 100 Second Amendment supporters gathered Sept. 7 in Hartford, Conn., on the steps of the state Capitol to “make a stand and to support the constitution,” according to organizers.
“It has become our obligation to tell Washington D.C. and the rest of the country how bad many of our laws are. It is also our job to tell America how hard it will be to get rid of any gun control package that passes,” noted the Connecticut Citizens Defense League (CCDL).
The CCDL—the state’s largest gun-rights organization—planned the pro-Second Amendment rally in response to a recent political stunt held by Democratic lawmakers, including Gov. Ned Lamont and U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who stood two weeks early on the very same steps of the state Capitol and urged the federal government to adopt gun restrictions like those in Connecticut.
The state has new anti-gun legislation that include three bills signed into law this year by Gov. Lamont. “This broad-based trio of gun control legislation will require firearms be made unavailable for self-defense, effectively end the centuries old practice of home-manufacturing firearms for personal use, and impose unnecessary restrictions on transporting handguns,” noted the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action.
“I was a little bit incensed at our politicians here in Connecticut trying to tell the rest of the country that Connecticut is leading the way with gun control and that it would be a good idea for the other states or the federal government to pass gun control based on Connecticut’s policies,” Scott Wilson, CCDL president, told the Connecticut Post.
Connecticut was the first state to pass a red flag law in 1999 and has some of the strictest gun restrictions in the country. “We want to make sure the free states know that if they pass these types of laws, they’re never going to go away,” said Wilson.
The event’s coordinator, Molly Sullivan, told Fox 61, “We’re really here to talk about how the Second Amendment is for everybody. And what the Second Amendment means going forward and the history of where we’ve come from.”
The NRA and the CCDL recently co-filed an amicus brief at the U.S. Supreme Court in an effort to get the nation's highest court to review a Connecticut Supreme Court ruling that reinstated part of a lawsuit against Remington.
The NRA/CCDL brief stated: “The Connecticut Supreme Court’s ruling in this case threatens the Second Amendment rights of all American citizens. The right to keep and bear arms means nothing if the ability to acquire those arms is not possible because the firearm industry is put out of business by unlimited and uncertain liability for criminal misuse of their products.”
