Friday, September 25, 2015

Connecticut's Mixed-Up Gun Laws - No Safe Storage Law but Reporting a Stolen Gun is Required

The Trace

Last Wednesday morning, police in the semi-rural Connecticut town of Orange received a flurry of reports that someone was breaking into vehicles. One of the callers was 66-year-old Vincent Brescia, who informed authorities that his loaded .38-caliber revolver had been snatched from the glove compartment of his unlocked truck, which was parked in his driveway overnight. The notice came well within the state’s mandatory 72-hour period to report lost or stolen firearms, but instead of officers leaving the scene with just an incident report, they charged Brescia with breaking the law.
 
Though he “expressed remorse for failing to lock his car,” Brescia was arrested for misdemeanor reckless endangerment, the Town of Orange Police Department announced on its Facebook page. Brescia’s pistol permit was also seized and sent to the licensing and firearms unit of the Connecticut State Police for review.

Anthony Cuozzo, the assistant chief of the Orange Police Department and a self-described “gun guy” who is also a firearms instructor, tells The Trace that Brescia was a “good citizen” for reporting his gun stolen. “But the number one tenet of responsible gun ownership is that the gun is properly secured and the owner maintains control of that gun,” he says.

7 comments:

  1. Does the fact that he was arrested and charged even without a mandatory "safe" storage law not indicate to you that you can get what you want (a gun owner arrested and disarmed) without such laws?

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    1. Someone who allows his gun to be so easily stolen should be arrested and disarmed of his other weapons - for life. It's called one strike you're out and it would make the world a safer place.

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    2. It's called one strike you're out and it would make the world a safer place.

      It would make the world an appalling place. But I'm not worried, because I know it will never, ever, ever, ever happen--and I'd wager that you know it, too.

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  2. The guy complied with the mandatory lost or stolen reporting, and he was arrested anyway. Are you in the least bit concerned that maybe people won't be so quick to call the police after hearing about these cases?

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    1. Yes, I am, and even more because the mandatory reporting law is pretty stupid in the first place. CT has it ass-backwards here.

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    2. I don't think you are getting what I am talking about. The way you want it, people will have an incentive to not call the police after being a victim of theft because you'll have them arrested and disarmed for life. Those who follow the law for fear of the punishment are going to get the punishment anyway under your schemes. So they might as well just not call the police to report the theft. Of course your answer for that is probably to make non-reporting an even more serious crime (which you just agreed is a stupid law), and you'll have this messed up "ass-backwards" situation where the gun owner is punished far more severally than the stick-up guy who got caught with the stolen gun. That's probably not ass-backwards in your mind, though.

      MikeB: "the mandatory reporting law is pretty stupid in the first place."

      FYI, this is the type of comment that get you in trouble with the gotchas. Inevitably in the not too distant future you are going to champion some state's "lost and stolen reporting" law, and Kurt or I will have to remind you of what you said here.

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  3. The gun loons love it that the laws get so confusing, they don't work. The kill crazy gun loons don't want gun laws to work and advise people to break gun laws, then hero worship the ones who break gun laws.

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