Late in the evening on Thursday, HB 7042 was passed by the Senate, and sent to Governor Lamont’s desk.
Debate on HB 7042 was prolonged for hours as Senate Republican’s fought their hardest to review every aspect of this bill and amend it further to provide protections for gun owners, gun stores, and firearm manufactures.
These amendments would have protected gun owners in a variety of ways. One amendment aimed to prevent anti-gunners from filing frivolous lawsuits intended to bankrupt firearm businesses in Connecticut. A different amendment would have provided financial relief to firearm industry members who had prevailed in their court case in the form of covering costs and reasonable attorney’s fees.
Another proposed amendment would have added language to ensure that only the individuals who had ‘actual knowledge’ that they were selling firearms to people at substantial risk of using those firearms to harm themselves or others, would be held accountable—replacing the previous wording that would have held gun stores and firearm manufacturers liable for legally selling a firearm to someone who later went on to commit a crime with it.
Unfortunately, these weren’t the only amendments voted down. Every single amendment provided by the Republicans to protect the Second Amendment was rejected. The version of the bill that advanced was the exact same version as the one we alerted on previously.
As a reminder from those previous alerts, the details of HB 7042 are below:
HB 7042 would outright ban some of the most commonly owned firearms in Connecticut on the basis that those models of firearms are simply capable of receiving fire-rate altering devices.
HB 7042 was written to allow for civil lawsuits to be brought against firearm industry members “who fail to exercise ‘reasonable control’ over their product.” What this language means is that firearm industry members ranging from firearms manufacturers to mom-and-pop gun stores could be deemed responsible for the actions of other people outside their company, who commit crimes with a firearm they’ve manufactured or sold. This is a clear attempt to hold firearms industry members liable for actions that criminals commit.
HB 7042 also adds certain misdemeanor convictions that occur in other jurisdictions to the list of offenses that disqualify a person from being issued long gun and handgun eligibility certificates and handgun permits.
There is also including wording in the bill that states:
“A firearm industry member shall establish, implement and enforce reasonable controls,” with “reasonable controls” meaning “procedures, acts and practices that are designed, implemented and enforced to … prevent the sale or distribution in this state of a firearm industry product that is designed in a manner that is reasonably foreseeable to promote conversion of a legal firearm industry product into an illegal firearm industry product.”
Using this section of the language, Representative Stafstrom argued on the House floor that Glock could have known about “design flaws” that would have allowed for attachment of devices that increase the rate of fire when Glock originally designed their pistol, and after the passage of this bill, Glock would possibly need to alter their design to prevent any future attachment of “Glock switches” or other accessories that could increase the rate of fire.
This bill will now move onto Governor Lamont, send him using the form above to tell him to VETO HB 7042 when it reaches his desk!
