HARTFORD — A tearful Kacey Mason joined her parents, Merry and Doug Jackson, (photo by Dixon) this evening in a full-court press to persuade the House of Representatives to take up a bill that would result in the seizure of firearms from those who have temporary restraining orders issued against them. You’ll recall that a year ago, Kacey’s sister, Lori Jackson, 32, was gunned down in her parents’ Oxford home. Merry Jackson was critically wounded. Lori’s estranged husband, Scott Gellatly, is scheduled to stand trial for murder next week in Milford Superior Court. Lori left behind two young kids.
The state averages 14 homicides of intimate partners each year, nearly all women. That means the controversial bill would take away guns from men. There are 9,000 applications for TROs each year about half of which are approved by judges. Of TROs issued only 671 cases involved gun possessions.
This issue hit the General Assembly – with opposition from the Connecticut Citizens Defense League Inc. – at a time when a certain faction of Democrat seems to be afraid of continued election losses. The theory, which the Blogster doesn’t buy, is that Republicans picked up 10 seats in the House election because of backlash to the 2013 legislative response to the Sandy Hook murders and the resulting law that banned the sale of assault-style rifles and large-capacity ammunition magazines similar to the kind that Adam Lanza used to kill 30 kids and six adults. As an observer, the Blogster believes that the Democrats who lost, took their 2014 re-elections for granted. They didn’t knock on doors and work for the re-elections that they apparently thought were an entitlement. An example would be Paul Davis, a five-term representative from Orange who lost to first-term Rep. Charles Ferraro of West Haven.
If anything, it can be argued that first-term Rep. Christine Simmons of Stamford defeated Rep. Mike Molgano because he voted against the 2013 gun reforms. For those fraidy cat Democrats, the Blogster points out that during presidential election years, like 2016, Democrats pick up seats in the General Assembly. Heck, U.S. Sen. Dick Blumenthal is running for re-election and he routinely leads the state in votes, with pormise for down-ticket Democrats.
Anyway, during a 6:30 p.m. news conference outside the Capitol Press Room, Mason and the Jacksons joined Karen Jarmoc, CEO of the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Carolyn Triess, executive director of the Permanent Commission on the Status of Women and an assortment of Democratic House members in support of the bill.
“I think it has the potential to save so many lives,” Mason said. “People who found themselves in the same situation my sister was and finally looking to get out only to unfortunately be killed.”
Merry Jackson: “We did all we could to keep her safe. We got an alarm system. We wore panic buttons. We didn’t know where he was. There was no way to serve him (with a restraining order). It’s a scary thing. I was shot four times. I survived. It’s a terrible situation. We’d like to see stricter law…take the guns away if there’s a chance of violence.”
“This is first and foremost about violence against women,” Triess said. “And anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is not telling the truth. So we really hope the leaders will realize the importance of this bill to women’s safety in Connecticut and call it and debate it and pass it.”
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy supported the legislation during he re-election race. Jarmoc, a former House member, smells the potential for the bill failing. “We’re just really disappointed at this point,” she said, recalling a news conference in March when legislative leaders called it a priority.
A few minutes later, Speaker of the House Brendan Sharkey told reporters that he intends to bring the bill up for a debate, but not tonight. “In the context of time management it’s going to generate a lot of discussion,” he said. “Mostly from people who are opposed to it and those people will talk it and as a result it’s going to take a long time to get it passed. We have to figure out when we can set aside the time to be able to have that debate.”
At this moment, the House is investing a second hour into a resolution favoring a national constitutional convention aimed at overturning the Citizens United big-bucks election contributions law. So far three of the 34 necessary states have ratified similar resolutions.