Let's talk about the CT legislative process

So yeah, and, and DJ, hi, how are you? You're the first to comment. I know that for sure. Um, so hi everyone, it is Tuesday night and I am sitting here in front of my computer writing testimony. And I thought perhaps, just maybe, you would like to know a little bit about this. How does this happen? What do you have to do? How do you know when it's time to write testimony? So because I'm here in Connecticut, we are going to discuss Connecticut. For those of you who are in other states that it does not affect you, it affects you because understanding how your legislative body works matters. So my hope is going over this and showing you just how simple and easy it is and perhaps talking a little bit about how challenging it can be over time. Hi Peter. So I'm gonna talk about CCDL and Peter Estrada here is our urban outreach for CCDL, but I will try to stay on track with the whole what are we doing and how are we doing it. So with that, hello Gizzard Gary. I'm gonna ignore the hi who's popping in for a few moments and I'm gonna hide those so I'm not distracted. And I'm going to try to jump into this, not keep you all here forever, but it's kind of a lot to unpack. And I realized that I had left at the last minute, so I figure I'm not the only one. So there's still people who are out there who are actually currently sitting in a legislative workshop for CCDL. Uh, for those of you who don't know, I'm going to pull up my screen in a second, uh, once I hit the share screen thingy. Um, CCDL is our Connecticut Citizens Defense League. And the first thing that you would want to do if you are here in Connecticut, if you have not already done this, but I'm confident that Miss Vanessa Kitty has already done this, you would click on the join button and scroll down here, and you can sign up for the free membership because you get the newsletters. And that's all you have to do. If you'd like to support them, by all means support them, but The first thing I would do, if you have not already, is sign up for that. Why do I say that? Because I don't know about you, but now my, my internet is slow. I like getting information into my inbox versus having to come here and click on Gun Rights Bill Watch. And this is again for Connecticut. What the Connecticut Citizens Defense League does is they give us a list of what bills we should be watching, which bills they believe they should support, and what bills they know for sure that we should be opposing. And for 2023, we have a fair amount of things that are on the list. Notice there are pages of them, but for right now, we're going to talk about Thursday, which is an act concerning certain target shooting pistols from provisions on assault weapons. So if you notice, there's this nice little green button here. What that means is that this is a pro-gun bill in that it supports sportsmen. So the short version— this is on our Connecticut website, General Assembly, because that's where we put all of our stuff here— is to require the Commissioner of Mortuary Service to to publish a list excluding certain target shooting pistols from the provisions on assault weapons. So, oh yeah, I forget my mouse is one place and not another. What is this talking about? Back in 2013, when we had a whole bunch of bills come through all at once, 115-page stuff worth of stuff basically put through overnight, one of the things they did is they talked about features of a gun. And they didn't want to talk to anyone who knew anything about firearms. So the bill was written in a way that made things like Olympic-style pistols into assault weapons. For those of you who don't understand what an Olympic-style pistol is, it's the.22 caliber, which is itty-bitty bullet, that the Olympians use for the Olympics. There you go. It's an Olympic-style target pistol. And so these pistols that clubs and children and adults use for target shooting and competitions have been put on the assault weapons ban, even though it is a handgun, but because of some of the features that it has, it is on the assault weapons ban. So what we're trying to do with this bill is to fix that. And of course now my dog wants to come in and is trying to break down the door. So hold that thought for just a second so I can let the dog in. I will be right back. Oh yeah, yeah, come on you. Yes, of course, I had to go live just for you. All right, so that is why we are for this bill, is because it fixes a mistake that they really probably did not actually intend to do. And this is one of the parts where we talk about why it's so frustrating sometimes the way that our legislative body works. So, um, let me show you this again. So here's how— what happens is CC Dale gave you the link, you got to go to the actual bill, and this is what it tells you it is doing. Now, if you want to learn more about it and actually look at it, you can click on the text of bill. So when you do that, you'll see that there's a whole lot of stuff here. Let me give you a little quick tip about this while I also make this bigger so maybe you can actually see some of it. Go to the end, just scroll all the way to the end, because what happens at the end of the bill? Well, it tells you proposed deletions are enclosed in brackets, proposed additions are indicated by underline. So what is this showing you? This is telling you how to actually read the bill. So even though it's 13 pages, we don't actually have to go through 13 pages to figure out what are they doing. The other part of this is at the bottom. It tells you the statement of purpose to require the Commissioner of Emergency Service and Public Protection to publish a list excluding certain target pistols from the provisions on assault weapons, repealing the existing regulations regarding such pistols. Also, at the bottom, it shows you what else it's going to be affecting. So I'm not gonna lie, reading this whole thing is painful, but it helps if you really— if you're one of those detail-oriented people that you want to look for the brackets and the underlining so you know what stuff is coming out, which is the brackets, and the additions are the underline. So for 13 pages of stuff, you just kind of scroll through here and it shows you what it's taking out. So, oh, target shooting at the Olympic Games sponsored by blah blah blah. So that's what's being taken out because that's in the brackets. And then what's going to be thrown in is identifies a list posted on the internet website of the Department of Emergency Services and Public protection. So this is how you make something that's crazy and apparently overwhelming for most of us— to make it a little bit easier, right, is look at just what's changing versus all 13 pages of text. So, um, ah, there's 19 comments. Hold on, let me see if I can get to All right, I got Peter, uh, who else? Hi, uh, yeah, GT3, there we go. Um, what is it? Don't ignore the high comments. Sorry, I didn't ignore all of them, I just had to for a few moments so I could get through at least a little bit because I don't want everybody to be here forever. Um, and Peter, just so you know, Vanessa Kitty is here in Connecticut and she's got CCCL stickers on her truck. And those of you who live in Connecticut will see the CCDL tickets, um, CCDL stickers pretty much everywhere. And actually, I should put one over there, but I don't have one. They're over there on my wall. But anyway, um, hi, Gizierd. Um, um, let's see. All right, did I catch up to live? Mo? Nope, you're all just talking about other things. Okay, so see, I can ignore most of them, but I can say hi to everybody real quick. So There's an example of a bill that we want to support. It's 13 pages because it's talking about taking existing statutes and adjusting it. So, and as we looked at just that little tiny piece of identifies a list posted, it's telling you what's going to happen and what they're trying to get rid of. Unfortunately, it is not like, um, the law was intended to be, which is anyone should be able to read it and easily understand it. So that is the joy of having a group like CCDL say, hey, this is the one we're watching and this is why we're watching. Because, um, ah shucks, there is— once you sign up for that email that I showed you in the beginning, they tell you in the email why they are for or against something so that it makes it very clear. Now I forgot to look at one more thing. The other thing is now it shows you— oh, and let me change my screen so you can see it. It shows you when the public hearing is going to be. And if you notice, it's in blue and— oh, see, I'm— my mouse is the wrong place. So it's in blue right here, right? So we had 2 to 4 days notice that this is when the hearing was gonna be. And so often they will also give us less than that. Now, if you look down here, it says public hearing testimony. So let's say you've never written testimony before, but you've been sent to this bill. You just simply click on public hearing testimony, and now it shows you all the folks who have written in.. And so far we have a fair number of people who are in support of. And the interesting thing is that one opposed right there. He doesn't really oppose it because I actually talked to him tonight and it was a mistake. When you submit the form, I'm going to show you guys the form to submit. But once you submit your support or opposition of this goes up here. Now this is only one page. And sadly, we need more people to write in. So I'm about to write in. Let me show you how. Are you ready for this? Um, my testimony is not actually done. However, with your guys' help, maybe I can go ahead and finish it. So like I said, the DC Project does not— CCDL sends out a thing saying, hey, go look at this bill. We support it. You support it too. You can write a testimony as simple as, hi, my name is Brooke Cheney. I would like you to support bill number blah, blah, blah. This one is 6684. Thank you. And write your name. That's it. You put your town under there because they want to know you're actually a Connecticut resident. You can put contact information if you want. Just remember, like that list I just showed you of testimony, it is always visible on the internet. Like, if you go to CGA website and type in the word Brooke Cheney, you'll find a whole bunch of testimony that I've submitted in the past. Not all of it, but a lot of it. Um, so here is my testimony that I am currently in the, um, I am currently writing. So I put the date up top, make it somewhat aware that I know when I'm doing this, so when I refer to it, I'll know when I talked about this. So you don't have to be this fancy, but this is what I do. Um, dear esteemed members of Public Safety and Security Committee, if you actually watch a live doohickey, you will actually hear people address them in so many different ways. I'd like you to encourage— I would like to encourage you to support this bill. The Olympic bullseye pistols that are used for competition should have never been on the list in the first place. I started my firearms journey with bullseye pistol in competition. If it weren't for these pistols, I would not be here before you. So my approach is emotional, as you will see the rest of this. My journey started as a mom who wanted to be safe with the guns in my home. I knew nothing about guns other than don't touch. Oops, sorry. Um, as a mom, I realized it was my duty to learn more. The people that I've met through the shooting sports are some of the kindest, most caring, welcoming people I've ever met. These.22 target pistols are what I learned on and became comfortable shooting with. The Bullseye League helped me gain confidence around firearms, which led me to become an advocate for violence and suicide prevention. So I get to tell them my story. I have 3 minutes to talk to them, and my job for me personally is to make them understand what they are doing and why they should be doing it. You can come at them with whatever facts and figures you want. Like I said, I tend to go down the emotional side. Without the competition shooters that use these pistols, I would not know that 2 out of 3 firearm deaths are suicide. I would not know that the same mental health programs that help prevent suicide also help prevent violence. I would not have become an instructor as well as a training counselor who now teaches folks how to be instructors. And I could just end it here. Um, thank you for your time. And then that's it. And here's the thing, if I do this, um, and I submit this for live testimony, oops, I don't want that. Um, they can ask me questions after I've said this. Now here's the other thing. If I'm going to copy and paste this so that I can then show you all what happens next— would you all like to know what happens next? That's what I want to know. Do you find this helpful so far? I have no idea. Um, but I am trying to find the place where CCVL has all the pretty links for you because again, if you just go and join and— oh yeah, so that, that should be something, ccbl.us. See, Peter, you should have dropped this in there. But anyway, if you go to ccbl.us, you can join and you will get this in your inbox. So let me go to my inbox and I will find this so I can show that to you as well. Yes, we want to know. Thank you, GT3. Um, because here's the thing, the less work you have to do, the easy— easier it is. Oh, helps if I'm in the right mailbox. That would be, that would be a bonus. Um, the easier it is for you to do this. It's about hooking up with your 2A group, right? Here in Connecticut, we have CCDL Connecticut. This is Defense League. I can speak, I swear. Um, in Massachusetts they have GOAL, Gun Owners Action League. In New Jersey they have something else. But here's the thing, you don't need to know the name of your 2A group. You can just type in statewide Second Amendment, um, sort of thing. Okay, I have found the email. Let me make it bigger because it's really, really tiny. On here, and this is only sort of helping. Okay, ready? Here we go. Because G2, uh, oh, hey G-Webs, how are you? This is your fault. Anyway, um, because, uh, G2/3 really did say yes, we do want to know. All right, so let's look at the email CCDL sends out. So target bill is run of the Public Safety Committee on Thursday, so you are needed now. This this is the second of three hearings, and again, my mouse is the wrong place. Uh, CCL supports this bill. So the first thing they do is they show you we need members to submit testimony, and they show you where we just were. I was just showing you where the thing is. So they give you a link right here in the email to click on submit written testimony. So I just go ahead and put in all of my information because, you know, doing it on the web, because it's gonna be, um, whatever it's called, it's gonna be public knowledge anyway. We know that we are looking at the 2/23 hearing that is scheduled to begin at 11:00 AM, and I'm gonna make sure I click on supports because some of my friends clicked on the opposes by accident. Um, and now what they are doing to fix that is they have to go back and they're writing to their actual reps. And because we know this is 6684, right? Yes, 6684. So now I'm gonna find that on our list here. There's 66— oh, here it is. There we go, 6684. I'm gonna type in my testimony and all I'm doing now is cutting and pasting that one that you just saw. And I just want to double-check that this is the bullseye one and 6684 is the correct thing. I click on I am not a robot, and then I click on submit testimony. Now they give you warnings, uh, that it is public record. So you understand that that website I showed you where all that other testimony is. So anything that you put in your thing will be available to people. So that is kind of how that works. So I click on that and voilà, I have now submitted testimony. You are not— oh, verify I'm not a robot. I'm like, yeah, because that actually should have disappeared, but I was distracted by someone asking for my son. And Your testimony submitted for review. If you have any questions, do you wish— oh, so no, I don't mean to do more. All right, so that's it. Oh, and mouse is in the wrong place again. Okie dokies. So that's it. That's in a nutshell. So there's an example of one that we're supporting. The other one that's coming up is tax, and that is for tomorrow, and I already submitted that one. And yes, so Guns and Barbecue was, you know, distracting me with, we want Max. And Max is currently probably taking a shower because it's a school night. Um, all right, TT3, you're gonna have to tell me what off stands for. So, all right, um, so you're a little bit late, but I will let you know, um, We are submitting 2 testimonies. The first one is for a hearing that's tomorrow in the, uh, Finance and— mean, it's taxes, so it's in the Finance Committee. Um, and they want to, they want to have 2 cents per round of.22 ammo, and then 5 cents per round of anything bigger than that. And that's their proposed tax. Now, of course, they make it sound really good because all that extra money they're going to get, they're going to put towards gun violence prevention stuff. So all of us gun owners need to pay for all the gun violence prevention stuff. Um, and so that is the other bill that is coming up tomorrow. Um, And that one is called House Bill— here, I'll just show it to you because instead of me reading it to you— an act establishing an excise tax on ammunition to provide funding for community gun violence intervention program grants. So this is another thing where when the poor elected officials are told that how dare they vote against something that is going to fund community gun violence intervention programs and grants, well, obviously they should vote best guess for that. But the truth is it's not worthwhile. Connecticut actually has quite a horrible track record of actually putting— saying money is going to go into a fund and then it might go there for a little while and then it goes into our general fund. And Connecticut, we are not good at budgeting currently. Um, all right, so now GT3 is letting me know it's Oregon Firearm Federation, although I'm thinking it's Oregon, but maybe not. I'm not a good speller, so anything's— so yeah, so when filling out online surveys, what if you are a bot? That was why the whole reCAPTCHA thing is there, to verify you are not a bot. The other thing about that is that they tell you, um, that they won't accept a second set of testimony on the same thing. Like, for example, the fact that I clicked I think I clicked some more and I submitted the same thing twice. They're only going to put it up once, right? And hopefully, because I clicked on the wrong thing, they're not actually going to kick it out because it's there twice. I won't know till tomorrow, um, because when you submit it is not necessarily when they, um, are going to see it or have it posted up. So that's kind of that. I have not figured out how to sign up for their in-person testimony because right now I have students coming on Thursday, and when you go to testify, it says 11 AM. However, sometimes, sometimes you want to smack people who make silly comments, but I am not a robot. So, but yeah, I, yeah, the whole what if you're a robot thing, it's true. I— if, if you are, then yeah, unless— depends on the directive that you're using for AI. If you're the robot that's going to lie, does it cause harm? Never mind, we're not going to go down that road tonight. Um, so anyway, submitting testimony is that simple. Like I said, you don't have to write a long letter like I did, and those are actually short. It's because I'm short on time. I have not had time to focus on this. Um, the chances of our Pistol 1 getting through are really, really, really small. But those— any gun owner in Connecticut, any person who believes in freedom in Connecticut should write in and say yes, they are target pistols for competition. These are not guns that are currently used in crimes on a regular basis or probably at all. However, we are going to go with the more people who write in, the more attention it gets, the more attention it gets, the less that the legislators can ignore it. For the Finance, Revenue, and Bonding Committee, there are also many, many testimonies already submitted. I do not know how many people are going to be there tomorrow. My original plan was to go tomorrow, but on Thursday I have a choice right now as a business owner. I have 2 students. I can call my students tomorrow and find out if they'd be willing to reschedule, which means I've lost revenue to go sit in the legislative building to have my 3 minutes to talk to the people that are in that building. Or I just send in my testimony. I send it to my reps. I send it to, um, my state senator and to my state representative and let them know. Because here's the thing, just because your testimony is submitted to a committee which has some people on it that may or may not be your state senators, there's no way that your state senator and your state rep are going to know that you did that. So when you take the time to submit testimony to a committee, you also want to make sure you finish by making sure that your representative and your legislator people know where you stand on these things because they are just people. They need information from you. They need to know where you stand. That is the other thing that CCDL does a great job of. Let me go back to the letter real quick. So we just did the submit of the written testimony. And it says sign up to go to the— oh, look. All right, y'all want to see me commit to going on Thursday? So here's the deal. I can put in all my information and I am not putting that. Oh, this one actually does not go up in public. So y'all get to see what my email address— please don't email me to death here. Wait, no, wait. I can, I can do part of this without you watching. So anyway, because I just, I just did it all wrong anyway. Um, so all I have to do is fill out this thing and my name will be added to a list. Yes, I know everyone wants to be on the list. No, not everybody wants to be on the list. It does have to say where I am from. And organization, I suppose I will put A Great Start Shooting School since this is what I do. Great start. And I can spell, I just can't spell and talk. Um, and I'm just gonna put instructor, right? Yes, yes I am. I do not. Oh, okay, there we go. Now I'm going to show you what I'm doing. Yeah, you have my address already, it's true. It is very true, but I know. All right, so do I represent a state agency? No, I do not. And I'm going to say self because here's the thing, some people do this, they have other people do these things. Have you filled this form out completely, including your unique— am I going to— I'm going to try to go in person and then I'm going to register because here's the thing Um, COVID has changed everything. They have just gone to what we call blended, and in theory tomorrow I will get an email. Oh wait, sorry, here, let me show you. My bad, I know it's really tiny for those of you who are on phones, DJ. Um, but you're— oh, and y'all can watch this on Thursday. Yes, you can, uh, because it will also be streamed on YouTube. So it tells you that you're going to be 11:00 AM, room 1B of the LOB. Legislative building is what LOB stands for. And it'll also be via Zoom, and registration is going to close tomorrow at 3:00 PM. So anyone who's in Connecticut who would like to do this, you can. And here's the funky thing, is that for those of you who are outside of Connecticut, in theory, because it's on Zoom, you can as well. So there is that. So that's it. I have now shown you everything. You— how to find the bills. Like I said, signing up for CCDL's email list is the easiest thing, or whatever the Second Amendment group in your state is that sends out legislative alerts. Click the links, read the thing, decide what makes sense for you. Like I said, for me it's about emotion. It's always about violence prevention and suicide prevention. That's where I stand. For other people, it's purely our Second Amendment. For other people, like the one that's tomorrow, that's taxes. It's like taxation is theft, right? But it could be lots of things. So for my tax— for the one on taxation, I talked about You're taking food out of people's mouths. When you go and look at the other testimonies that are up there already, they talk about proficiency with firearms and how it's going to cost more to do training and all of these other things. So your voice is important, even if all your voice says is, dear senators and representatives, please support this bill. Thank you, your name, your town. If it's— it can be that simple. You can put your heart into it, you can put your voice into it, you can look at others and copy what they have already done. It doesn't take much, but here's the thing, it does take something. It takes time. I've been chatting with you for half an hour. I worked on all of this for at least an hour prior to in order to find what's what and what is going on. So my request to you is whether you have pro-gun or anti-gun legislative body, support those who are pro-freedom, support those who are actually anti-violence versus just more regulations and restrictions and write them a letter and say, thank you for what they have done, or write them a letter and say, please don't keep doing what you're doing. It's not doing anything. Which is actually kind of funny because that's what a lot of our Democrats have been saying this year. And it's not supposed to be a partisan thing. Our governor is a Democrat. Our governor said that the things they've been doing, which is laws, regulations, laws, regulations versus actual anti-violence programs that help stop the violence prior to anyone getting a gun in their hand, That is not where they have focused. They've done laws, regulations, laws, regulations. So I invite you, whether you're a gun owner or not, to actually look into violence prevention. Understand that violence with a firearm is actually the smallest percentage of violence in America, and that is the FBI's statistics. Clear as day. You can go back 20, 30-plus years and see this. This is not made up anything. It is for real. So with that, I will let you all go on this lovely Tuesday evening, and I hope that's been helpful, and I hope you will share this, like this, and put it somewhere where someone else will see it who might actually take action. And by all means, you should take action too. So with that, apparently we're going to end on robots' rights. Um, yeah, so anyway, good night all. Thank you for checking in. Maybe you'll see me on YouTube. Maybe my students will have to reschedule. Maybe I'm going to lose money. We'll see how this all goes. But the point is, if we don't step up and stand up, we're going to lose everything. So with that beautiful, spectacular, wonderful, uplifting idea, I'm really gonna go now. And hopefully you will do something and let me know, because the worst is yet to come. We have the governor's bill coming up. We don't know when, but it's a doozy. It's super ridiculously bad, does nothing but make someone like me into a felon while I sit here at home And it doesn't affect violence in any way, shape, or form, no matter how much they cry from the rooftops and say that it does. It just doesn't. It doesn't add up. And that's why it's been effective for the past 10 years. So anyway, really