Several lawmakers gathered in New Haven Monday to promote new gun measures they plan to take up in the next legislative session.
In an ongoing effort to combat gun violence in the state, a new package of legislation will be introduced. State Rep. William Tong, D-Stamford, state House Judiciary chair and candidate for attorney general, said the bill includes banning bump stocks, the attachment that enables a semiautomatic rifle to fire faster, and ghost guns, the do-it-yourself kits, which can be purchased online.
“If you go to ghostguns.comyou’ll see 80 percent of a gun that you can buy and it just requires you to go acquire the other 20 percent and you can make a gun at home, Tong said.”
The process allows customers to bypass background checks and enables them to build an unregistered firearm without a serial number, making the gun untraceable.
Tong said they will be re-examining the definition of a firearm.
“Our current definition of firearms really names firearms,” Tong said. “So it says handguns. It says shotguns. It uses the sort of known terms and doesn’t provide as descriptive a definition as is needed today to cover these 80 percent receivers. So when we say 80 percent receivers, we mean 80 percent done -- and because it’s not yet functional, it’s not a firearm under our statute.”
Tong said both the governor’s office and the Judiciary Committee are working on the language now.
State Rep. Roland Lemar of New Haven was one of several legislators who joined Tong. He said they’re expecting fierce opposition from lobbyists, and states can’t wait for the federal government to act.
“We’ve been waiting for decades for the federal government to get their act together and come up with concrete, common-sense gun legislation that protects all of our citizens,” Lemar said.
He said there is a lot of opposition to even the most minute changes.
The new short session begins Wednesday.