HARTFORD — Attorney General William Tong warned Friday that Connecticut’s nearly three-decade-old ban on semi-automatic weapons is “at very real risk” of being lifted, at least temporarily, after one of several groups suing to overturn the law requested that the state be prevented from enforcing its ban while the case proceeds.
The motion for a preliminary injunction was filed Thursday by attorneys for the National Foundation for Gun Rights in a federal court in New Haven. The Colorado-based group is one of several plaintiffs that filed lawsuits against Connecticut’s semi-automatic weapons ban following a Supreme Court decision striking down New York’s gun-permit law, sparking a wave of litigation against other state bans.
“I don’t have to tell you how extraordinarily dangerous this is in this moment to see an immediate repeal of the semi-automatic weapons ban,” Tong said during a hastily assembled press conference on Friday, where he was joined by Gov. Ned Lamont. “We are going to fight tooth and nail, we’re going to throw everything we have at them to keep Connecticut families safe and to preserve our very strong gun laws.”
Tong’s office has yet to file its formal response to the group’s motion. He told reporters Friday that filing would be made “soon.”
In a statement Friday, NFGR President Dudley Brown defended the group’s lawsuit, saying “The day of reckoning for the State of Connecticut has come, and it’s time for them to answer to the Second Amendment for trampling the gun rights of their law-abiding citizens.”
“Our motion for preliminary injunction is simply saying that when rights are at stake, we cannot waste another day in allowing unconstitutional gun control to stand,” Brown said.
The group’s lawsuit was filed on behalf of several of its members in Connecticut who claim they would purchase semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines — which face a similar ban — if not for the state’s restrictive laws. “In this case, the Second Amendment’s plain text covers Plaintiffs’ conduct in seeking to acquire bearable arms,” attorneys for the group wrote in Thursday’s filing.
Despite their concerns about the potential repercussions from an injunction, neither leader on Friday offered details about what, exactly they would do in such a situation. Tong said such hypotheticals are a subject of frequent dialogue between his office and state lawmakers.
As a legal matter, Tong said he is “very confident about the state’s positions, our laws are constitutional.” The case involving the NFGR has been assigned to Judge Janet Bond Arterton, an appointee of President Bill Clinton.
The filing came as Democrats, including Lamont, have publicly floated an expansion of the Connecticut’s semi-automatic weapon ban, including by going after tens-of-thousands of weapons that were grandfathered into the law prior to the most recent update in 2013. Both Lamont and Tong are also facing re-election on Tuesday against Republicans they accuse of being less committed to upholding the state’s gun laws.
During a debate earlier this week against his Republican opponent Bob Stefanowski, Lamont raised the use of an semi-automatic weapon in last month’s deadly shooting of two police officers in Bristol, calling the weapons “cop killers.”
When asked Friday whether the lawsuit gave him pause about potentially expanding the semi-automatic weapons ban, Lamont said that it did not and that he was emboldened to do so by nationwide statistics showing Connecticut has a lower rate of gun violence than many states with looser gun laws.
“Our laws work,” Lamont said. “Don’t take away our rights to defend ourselves, to protect our police.”