Anywhere from 20,000 to 100,000 gun owners in Connecticut became Class D felons overnight after failing to register their semi-automatic rifles with the state of Connecticut as required by a hastily passed gun control law last year. The deadline for registration was January 1, 2014, and it is now believed tens of thousands of gun owners chose not to register as an act of defiance.
“This is amazing. Lead story on The Blaze right now: officials in Connecticut stunned by what could be a massive statewide act of civil disobedience,” Glenn said on radio this morning. “I want you to remember: This is Connecticut. This is New England. This is provincial. These are not cowboys. These are hardcore liberals for the most part. Even the conservatives are liberals in Connecticut.”
Police had received 47,916 applications for “assault weapons certificates” and 21,000 incomplete applications as of Dec. 31, Lt. Paul Vance told The Courant.
At roughly 50,000 applications, officials estimate that as little as 15 percent of the covered semi-automatic rifles have actually been registered with the state. “No one has anything close to definitive figures, but the most conservative estimates place the number of unregistered assault weapons well above 50,000, and perhaps as high as 350,000,” the report states.
Due to the new gun control bill passed in April, likely at least 20,000 individual people — possibly as many as 100,000 — are now in direct violation of the law for refusing to register their guns. As we noted above, that act is now a Class D Felony.
“The law's in direct violation of the U.S. Constitution,” Pat said. “So who is committing the greater crime here? The [idiots] who passed the law.”
In December, a photo surfaced of hundreds of people waiting in line to register their firearms, and the image immediately drew comparisons to Weimar Germany.
Photo credit: George Roelofson/WTNH
Now it appears, however, that thousands of Connecticut gun owners have chosen to defy orders.
Republican state Sen. Tony Guglielmo told The Courant he spoke to a constituent at a meeting in Ashford, who said some of his friends with semi-automatic rifles are intentionally taking a stand.
“He made the analogy to prohibition,” the lawmaker recalled. “I said, ‘You’re talking about civil disobedience,’ and he said ‘Yes.’”
Guglielmo said he really thought the “vast majority would register.”
“You have a semiautomatic weapon, you know exactly what the law is. There's no ignorance there,” Glenn said. “There's no one more responsible than gun owners, honestly… NRA members are some of the most responsible people I have ever met. They know what the law is. They don't want them in the hand of criminals.”
