This legislation dictates that a man ACCUSED of a crime will be treated like a guilty criminal!
CTPost reports:
HARTFORD — Accused domestic abusers would have to surrender firearms within 24 hours under legislation that won final approval in the Senate on Monday afternoon and now heads to the governor for his expected signature.
The goal is to protect women from the increased lethality at a critical point in a relationship: when they are trying to leave their abusers. About 14 domestic homicides occur annually in Connecticut, half of which are caused by guns.
While 5,000 temporary restraining orders are issued annually, about half result in permanent orders. The bill, which was approved last week in the House, would require court hearings within seven days and if judges decide against extending the orders, weapons would be returned within five days later. Currently, court hearings are held 14 days later.
“This is a very important bill,” said Senate President Pro Tempore Martin M. Looney, noting that the issue goes back to the summer and fall of 2014, when a task force found that compared to other states, Connecticut fell short in protected victims of domestic abuse.
Looney said the current procedure which can drag on 14 days or more, can be demoralizing and stressful.
“To focus to a greater extent on the possible inconvenience of gun owners at the expense of the great danger to victims of domestic violence is not the balance that we should strike in looking at this issue of policy,” he said. “That’s why this bill is exactly what we should be doing in this area.”
Republican lawmakers including Sen. Tony Hwang, of Fairfield, Rep. Toni Boucher, of Wilton and Sen. L. Scott Frantz,, of Greenwich, voted with Democrats in favor of the bill. Sen. Catherine Osten, D-Sprague, voted against the bill.
“We have a moral obligation to work to prevent needless tragedy and to make this the law,” Malloy said in a statement just after the vote. “Women in abusive relationships are five times more likely to be killed if their abuser has access to a firearm. Between 2000 through 2012, Connecticut averaged 14 intimate partner homicides per year, and firearms were the most commonly used weapons. When an instance of domestic violence rises to the point that a temporary restraining order is needed, we must do everything we can to prevent tragedy.”
During the Senate debate and last week’s discussion of the bill on the House floor, lawmakers cited the 2014 murder of Lori Jackson in her parents’ Oxford home. Jackson had been unable to have her estranged husband, Scott Gellatly, served with a restraining order because he ventured out of state. He bought a handgun in Massachusetts and shot her mother, Merry Jackson, in the face, before killing the 32-year-old mother of twin toddlers, who were sleeping nearby. Gellatly was recently sentenced to 45 years in prison.
