Politics & Government

How Did Your State Legislator Vote on the CT Gun Control Measure?

The majority of the delegation from Ellington and Somers did not vote with the majority in the final outcome.

Legislation approved late Wednesday by the legislature and signed into law Thursday by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy makes Connecticut the toughest state in guns in the U.S.

The measure prohibits the sale of gun magazines with a capacity of more than 10 rounds and requires background checks for private gun sales, including those at gun shows. The legislation also broadens Connecticut's current assault weapons ban to include more than 100 gun models. 

The bill sets aside $15 million for expanded school safety and mental health programs, and provides an avenue to create the first registry of dangerous offenders in the U.S.

With such change, the votes in the Connecticut General Assembly were not as close as you would think: in the Senate, 26 voted in favor with 10 against. In the House of Representatives, 105 were in favor with 44 against.  

Curious about how your local state legislators cast their vote? Here is a breakdown of the votes and if comments by the officials were available, those are included, too.

For Somers:
Republican Rep. Penny Bacchiochi - No
Republican Sen. John Kissell - No

For Ellington:
Republican Rep. Christopher Davis  - No
Republican Sen. Tony Guglielmo - No
Democratic Senator Gary D. LeBeau - Yes

Sen. Guglielmo had this to say in a prepared statement: “I knew I was going to vote no. I cannot get by the premise of this bill. You have a deranged young man, a mass murderer who worshipped mass killers. We have ordinary citizens who never caused a problem in the past and never will. How do you connect the dots between the killer and the ordinary citizen? You are punishing the wrong group. Should we be here without a police report?

“I have a lot of rod and gun clubs in my district. I’m a member at one and I’ve gotten to know these people. They are not a problem. We are doing them a great harm. We are lumping them together with a madman.

“There is an economic component to this. Connecticut has a huge industry that produces fire arms and ammunitions. We have pride for our history in the firearms industry. We dedicated state money to make the Colt Complex in Hartford an historic landmark. There are 5,000 jobs in our state concentrated in the firearm industry.

“There is also a component that I only recently learned about, the large number of people who will boycott manufacturers that are in Connecticut because of something called brand damage. These gun buyers boycott manufacturers who make guns in states that have restrictive gun laws.

The CEO of Mossberg, a popular gun manufacturer is getting offers every day from other states to have them move their business.

“Here in Connecticut we tax people too much, we make it hard almost adversarial to run a business. You never want to trade money for blood, but if you don’t mention the economic component this argument is not honest. Here we are ready to throw out 5,000 jobs and yet we pay millions in corporate welfare to other companies for fewer jobs in some cases as little as 200 jobs.

“I’m a grandfather of 8 and 3 of the children are in elementary school and if I thought there was anything in this bill that would make them safer then I would vote for it. There isn’t.

“We could do good things including: reconstituting the gun trafficking task force and funding it with a million dollars. The task force works. It gets illegal guns off the streets. I support that. We could penalize straw buyers by charging them with tougher crimes and making this type of punishment a real deterrent. We could put more money in to school security. We could repeal the flawed program of early release from prison. All of those are good things.

“I think we should do something that does good not just feels good.”

Sen. LeBeau had this to say in a prepared statement: I "today voted for a comprehensive package of firearms, school safety and mental health laws designed to increase public safety in the wake of the tragic Newtown shootings last December.

The bill includes an important new provision that Sen. LeBeau first advocated for more than a year ago: prohibiting the sale of any rifle or pistol magazine with a capacity of more than 10 rounds.

“I’m proud of the action of the legislature today in finally taking up this issue of magazine capacity and passing it into law,” Sen. LeBeau said. “Overall, this bill balances the need for public safety with the right to self-protection and the Second Amendment right to firearms ownership.”

Sen. LeBeau, who is a former, longtime high school teacher, also welcomed new efforts to increase student safety in public schools.

Today’s bill establishes a “School Safety Infrastructure Council” which will develop some basic safety standards for school building projects, authorizes $15 million in bonding for a school security infrastructure competitive grant program to reimburse towns for upgrades to school security infrastructure, and requires school security and safety plans be developed at each school."

Rep. Penny Bacchiochi commented on her vote in an interview with Ellington-Somers Patch:

"It was probably one of the most difficult votes of my political career," Bacchioci said. 

While she said she supported parts of the bill, such as universal background checks, increased funding for mental health and school security upgrades and tougher storage requirements, she ultimately voted against the new law.

"I felt the people that would be impacted by that legislation were law-abiding gun owners," Bacchiochi said, specifically citing the banning of
 more than 100 additional types of guns, high-capacity magazines and forced registration to purchase ammunition.
"Here in Eastern Connecticut, an overwhelming 90 percent of the constituent contact I had was against banning additional weapons, against banning magazines," Bacchiochi said. "About 80 to 90 percent said, 'don't step on our Second Amendment rights.'"




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