A Connecticut gun rights advocate confronts legislators outside the State Capitol over Bill 6667, arguing its 98-page gun violence bill creates gun-free zones and bans firearm features that research shows don't prevent violence. He cites FBI and CDC data to argue effective prevention requires addressing social and economic conditions, not weapon restrictions.
All right, so here I am sitting at the legislative building just outside the Capitol. That's my little crown back there. It's the Capitol building here in Connecticut. Why am I here again? Oh, because there's bills, and there's bills that are called anti-violence that have nothing to do with preventing violence. And so I am here to talk to our representatives who are all over there at the Capitol. I have brought a letter to share with them, and if I knew how to turn my camera around on my phone, I would show you the letter, but I cannot because I don't know how to do that. So anyway, it is a lovely— what, what day is this? May? Yeah, we're in May. It's a lovely spring day, and, um, I'm here. There are a bunch of other people here from CCDL, which is our local Second Amendment rights group here in Connecticut, and we have a really, really horrible bill called— wait, I'll read it to you. It says it is called the An Act Addressing Gun Violence. However, the sad truth of the bill, there is nothing in there that actually addresses preventing violence. I've done lots of studies and read lots of people who are smarter than me as far as what their stuff is and violence prevention is about preventing violence. It doesn't talk about what tools people use for violence, it's about actually addressing the issue of violence prevention. So like I said in the comments, depending on YouTube or Facebook, our politicians see over 1,000 bills every stinking year and my phone just went dark, so I don't know if y'all can still see me or not. Hopefully you can. So I will keep touching my screen apparently. So they see over 1,000 bills every year, and it's very limited as far as how much time they can spend on each one. Some are really common stuff, like they're naming people or appointing people that have already been voted in, things like that for our judiciary system and other places. Other stuff is like this, the gun bill. And when you have a bill that is called an Act Addressing Gun Violence, of course you're going to vote yes for it because we all want to prevent gun violence. Unfortunately, if they don't have time to actually look into the bill, which is over 93 pages long, I made a nice little bullet point section for them that shows the different things that are being changed in the law. And I also explain why the things that are in this have little or nothing to do with actual violence prevention. One of the examples is creating more gun-free zones. And my statement in my letter was, why would we create more gun-free zones when pretty much most of the headlines we get about mass shootings, whether it's Sandy Hook, Pulse nightclub, Vegas, those are all gun-free zones. So if they're not working, why would we create more? Because that's one of the things that's in the governor's bill. Then there's another thing about features and parts of guns and more stuff that's banned. And it's like, I've studied the FBI crime statistics for over a decade now. There is nothing in any of the stuff that has been researched and looked at that has anything to do with the efficiency of the firearm. As a matter of fact, there's lots of stuff that shows it has nothing to do with semi-automatic versus fully automatic or anything along those lines. So, um, those are just 2 of the 21 bullet points that I gave them. Now, to be fair, 21 sounds like a lot, right? But it's a 98-page bill because what they do is they take the existing law, they make changes, they underline it, and they make it in bold so you know what stuff is being changed. So even just to read through the bill would take forever. So you and I, as people who care about actually preventing violence, we need to help them. So not only did I tell them why this bill does nothing to prevent violence, I gave them solutions. I pointed them towards the CDC and where violence prevention programs are important. So what does CDC say about violence prevention? And sorry for about the Blair Witchness. Like I said, I was going to try to turn this around so you could look at the Capitol versus me for the whole time. So plans to prevent and reduce community violence addressing underlying conditions that affect health and quality of life is important. Important. These plans can use local data, including young people with lived experiences in the process, and address social, economic, structural, and physical conditions that contribute to violence. There's none of that in the governor's bill. 6667 is the bill number. Research from the CDC— again, research shows that improving the conditions in which children and families live, work, learn, and play can reduce child abuse and neglect. And why am I talking about child abuse when we're talking about gun violence prevention? Well, because violence usually starts at home at a young age. People learn to do the things that they live. CDC's approach to preventing firearm injuries— injuries, there we go, I can really talk. CDC's approach to preventing firearms injury focuses on 3 elements: providing data to inform Action: conducting research and applying science to identify effective solutions. And again, none of this is in the governor's bill 6667. However, there is a bill that we can support, and that is HB number 6817, because it does talk about taking into account anytime there is a mass shooting. It does talk about actually doing the research and gathering the information needed to help prevent additional firearms tragedies. And there's another thing the governor's bill wants to do is create another arm of government. And my response to that portion of it is we need to spend that money that you would have spent on a whole brand new arm of government to oversee the gun stores instead actually put into communities so it would actually help. Because one of the other things CDC says about violence prevention is strengthen economic support to families, promote social norms that are protected against violence and adversity, and ensure a strong start for children and teach skills. So that is what I'm doing here today at the Capitol. By all means, you can take action at your Capitol no matter where it is. You can pay attention to something you care about. It may not be guns, and that's okay, but something you know about, whether it's organic farming or I don't know, pollution control, or maybe it's electric, who knows. But whatever your passion is, you know more about it than they do. They're doing the best they can to make the information, make decisions based on the information they have. But you and I as Americans are supposed to help them. And that's what I do on a regular basis as much as I can. Any questions, let me know. If anyone left comments as I was chatting, I'm sorry, I can't see them. It's really bright out here. So y'all have a lovely rest of your Tuesday. Oh yeah, other thing about being an advocate: have a weird schedule. My work week is Wednesday through Sunday, so that's how I can come do this on a Monday or Tuesday. All right, I'll talk to y'all later. Bye.
