Connecticut Gun Bill Will Require an 'Ammunition Eligibility Certificate,' Registration of Magazines

Republicans and Democrats have reached a deal on a sweeping new gun law for Connecticut. It makes CT one of the least Second Amendment-friendly states in the nation.

The Connecticut deal includes a ban on new high-capacity ammunition magazines like the ones used in the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School that left 20 children and six educators dead. There are also new registration requirements for existing magazines that carry 10 or more bullets, something of a disappointment for some family members of Newtown victims who wanted an outright ban on the possession of all high-capacity magazines and traveled to the state Capitol on Monday to ask lawmakers for it.

The package also creates what lawmakers said is the nation’s first statewide dangerous weapon offender registry, creates a new “ammunition eligibility certificate,” imposes immediate universal background checks for all firearms sales, and extends the state’s assault weapons ban to 100 new types of firearms and requires that a weapon have only one of several features in order to be banned.

The newly banned weapons could no longer be bought or sold in Connecticut, and those legally owned already would have to be registered with the state, just like the high-capacity magazines.

Senate Minority Leader John McKinney, a Fairfield Republican whose district includes Newtown, said Republicans and Democrats have understood they needed to “rise above politics” when they decided to come up with a legislative response to the massacre.

“At the end of the day, I think it’s a package that the majority of the people of Connecticut I know will be proud of,” he said.

The eligibility certificate requires every buyer to be fingerprinted like a suspected criminal, take a firearms training course, and undergo a national criminal background check that includes mental health admissions records. Last week, the Newtown killer’s firearms training course completion certificate was used by the left to abuse the NRA, which offers such courses nationwide.

We hear in it said in the context of another issue that the civil rights of Americans should not be subject to popularity votes. That logic evidently doesn’t apply to the civil right of self-defense.

Connecticut’s new law leads inevitably to the statewide registration of all firearms. None of Connecticut’s new laws would have stopped the Newtown killer.