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League of Women Voters of CT
Statement on Gun Violence
The League of Women Voters of CT has long supported measures to protect the health and safety of citizens through regulating the ownership of handguns and semi-automatic weapons. LWVCT also supports measures to strengthen the mental health supports for our youth and young adults, even in these difficult economic times, as an essential investment in preserving public safety in our communities.
We join the citizens of Connecticut, and those of the nation, in mourning the senseless and violent loss of life of children and staff at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT. While we recognize it will take time before all the facts of this tragic shooting are known, we believe that all CT children deserve to be free from gun violence, whether they live in our suburban towns, our urban centers or rural hamlets.
We applaud the state for upholding a suitability standard for obtaining a handgun permit-which gives the local police chiefs discretion to determine whether an applicant is a suitable person to receive a permit-and for adopting statutes that prohibit persons convicted of a felony or serious juvenile offense, or persons with a recent history of court-ordered confinement to a psychiatric facility, among others, from possessing firearms.
But this not enough. We must work now to ban large capacity ammunition magazines---those with more than 10 rounds---in Connecticut. And on the federal level, we must renew the ban on assault weapons, which lapsed in 2004. Additionally at the federal level, we must be vigilant in preserving the suitability standard, resisting efforts to take away the discretion accorded to local public safety officials, and opposing bills such as the national right-to-carry reciprocity act that have been introduced in the U.S. Congress-that would permit out-of-staters to carry concealed firearms into CT, even though they could not be licensed to carry weapons in this state.
