With Gov. Ned Lamont and Senate Democrats proposing gun safety legislation in the past month, those who work to prevent violence have voiced their support and offered advice.

Lamont is proposing the establishment of a gun tracing task force to find the source of illegally owned guns and creating a state license for Connecticut gun dealers, among other initiatives. He also proposes to add more guidance to the state's existing law on safe gun storage, as well as a new requirement that all firearms — not just handguns — be sold with a trigger lock.

Manufacturers have evaded Connecticut's assault weapons ban by producing guns that are "functionally identical" to banned ones, according to the Lamont administration. Firearms older than 1993 are exempt from the ban, allowing out-of-state dealers to buy these older guns and ship them into Connecticut. To close these two loopholes, Lamont proposes expanding the ban to include guns with so-called "arm braces" and those older than 1993, and opening a registration period for people who own these types of guns.

Lamont's proposals also would create a statewide community violence prevention program. In a news release from the governor's office, the administration recognized Connecticut's "strong local violence intervention programs" but noted "they are not present in every community, they face limited resources, and there is little statewide coordination and evaluation."

The proposed solution is to have the state Department of Public Health's Office of Injury Prevention start the intervention program, which "will fund and support individual programs" and "will evaluate programs to create a statewide strategy for the most effective violence intervention approaches in the future." The plan is to fund the program with $3.5 million from the American Rescue Plan Act federal pandemic relief aid.

Daryl McGraw, director of diversity, equity and inclusion for the state's public defender's office and founder of the New London-based criminal justice consulting organization Formerly Inc., said any such state program, agency or committee must work for and with existing social programs focused on violence prevention.

"The state should do an asset map and find out all the good grassroots organizations on the ground doing this work," McGraw said. "The state, if they even attempt anything like that, they need to find formerly incarcerated people like myself who have transitioned, who have made a successful change in their lives to be running and employed in these organizations. It wouldn't work if you put in another state agency of people without live experience."

McGraw, who just finished his role as co-chair of the state's Police Accountability Task Force, has been involved with a variety of anti-violence efforts in the New London community, and used to run the Friendship House, a sober living facility.

Senate Democrats also are introducing legislation related to gun violence, some of which mirrors Lamont's proposals. The Senate plan for the violence prevention program has subtle but significant differences. State Sen. Marilyn Moore, D-Bridgeport, depicted the Senate's version as more permanent — rather than a onetime influx of $3.5 million — and even more beholden to local programs.

"We're talking about a commission that will be sustained with dollars and have someone responsible for seeing a statewide group of people doing the work," she said this month during a news conference. "The other piece we really want to focus on is evaluation. ... Let's identify what works in our communities."

State Sen. Gary Winfield, D-New Haven, said the Senate's and the governor's proposals are "certainly in the same arena." 

Republican opposition

Lamont's proposals are unpopular with state and local Republicans.

State Rep. Greg Howard, R-Stonington, ranking member of the Public Safety Committee and a Stonington police officer, said in a joint statement in February with state Rep. Craig Fishbein, R-Wallingford, that the governor's proposals are in effect "attacking law-abiding gun owners."

"If the governor were truly serious about reducing crimes, and particularly gun crimes, he would work to strengthen state law by fully funding the Statewide Firearms Trafficking Task Force, lifting prohibitions on motor vehicle searches, reinstating qualified immunity for law enforcement during the course of their duties, and holding our judicial system accountable," Howard and Fishbein said in the statement.

Senate Republican Leader Pro Tempore Paul Formica, R-East Lyme, and Senate Republican Leader Kevin Kelly, R-Stratford, also oppose Lamont's proposals.

"This is about so much more than guns, although that is where the Governor wants the focus," the senators said in the statement. "It is about the permissive policies enacted by Democrats that enable violent repeat offenders to continue committing crimes. It is about our state being dead last in job growth and income growth and lacking the opportunities to help people avoid turning to crime in the first place."

Connecticut Citizens Defense League President Holly Sullivan said Friday that proposals restricting gun access simply don't work.

"The legislation isn't effective. It's not working. We have a violence problem, and no matter how many bills they keep passing ... it's not effective," Sullivan said. She added that the CCDL would "vehemently" oppose any legislative attempt to put more restrictions on gun dealers, such as requiring a state license.

"It leaves the door open for the state to put in any prohibitions or requirements they want," Sullivan said.

She added that the CCDL supports intervention efforts as long as they don't result in additional taxes on guns and ammunition.

Who is at the table 

Curtis Goodwin, a former New London city councilor, was adamant in saying the only way for such a program to be successful is if it were in place solely to empower local community members to address immediate needs.

"For the government to think its place is to provide that program, suggest it or come up with it is a disservice to that particular community. There's no broad brush that you can paint for every community," Goodwin said. "Far too often we just throw a check at it when we try to address problems, but we're really just checking boxes."

Goodwin also mentioned local activist organization Hearing Youth Voices and the New London Office of Youth Affairs as two entities with ongoing anti-violence efforts.

New London Human Services Director Jeanne Milstein echoed Goodwin, both on the necessity for a local connection in any violence intervention program and on the need to identify programs that work, and fund those.

"Any of these initiatives have to be driven by local communities," Milstein said. "Not just nonprofits, we need youth themselves to be decision makers on these committees, and their families, and a wide array of partners. And we need to fund better, not more. Although we may have to fund more, too."

Goodwin, co-founder of the New London Talent Show, pointed to the state's recent recognition of what the talent show does in the form of grant money as a perfect example of investing in local communities and funding successful programs. He said a staple of the talent show's success is that it is a grassroots operation founded and run by people motivated only by positive change.

"The state of Connecticut finally — what are we, on our 11th year in June? — gave us a grant, which is given out to curb youth violence, almost $100,000 to partner with the Garde to expand our programming," Goodwin said. "That's the way things work."

The talent show was founded as a response to the 2010 fatal stabbing of 25-year-old Matthew Chew by a group of teens in New London. Last year, just a little over 10 years after Chew's murder, the fatal shooting of 17-year-old New London High School student Ronde Ford shook the city and caused conversations among residents, police and elected officials.

Goodwin and McGraw kept coming back to, "Who is at the table?"

"How can you tell me not to handle a gun when you don't even come from the same community we come from. Many of these young kids are carrying guns and knives at 12 and 11 years old because they're scared," McGraw said. "They're carrying weapons to protect themselves. If you don't come from that community and understand that people are legitimately scared and trying to protect themselves, then how can you understand?"

"The people closest to the problem are closest to the solution, but they're always the furthest away from the resources," McGraw added. "We need those people at the table. We need those people to have their own table."

'Ghost guns' untraceable  

Milstein and others said that turning someone away from violence starts early in life.

"Many of these kids are responding to systemic and contextual trauma, we need clinical services but we also need other supports, like horseback riding lessons, art lessons, etc.," Milstein said.

Winfield said that without intervention, "What you see oftentimes is a cycle of violence repeated."

McGraw framed it as, "What New London youth need is mentors. Across the state we need mentors."

"Everyone's talking about these juveniles committing crimes and this uptick in crime, but nobody's checking in with them and asking them what's going on," McGraw said. "Nobody's ever asking what happened to them. Is it the fatherless home? Is it poverty? Are they hungry? What's going on with these youth where there's this uptick in crime? Instead of locking them up, we should try to understand what would make them want to do crime."

Rep. Anthony Nolan, D-New London, said he likes the idea of a statewide task force focused on intervention. "The opportunities for municipalities to get involved are going to be there, but one of the issues we're having is we have to recruit more police," said Nolan, a New London police officer. "We don't want to lose an officer to that program and not have the officer on the street. Those are the small concerns, but I think we'll overcome them."

New London police Capt. Matthew Galante said police support all efforts that address gun-related crimes. "Our agency has unfortunately investigated a number of shootings in recent years," he wrote in an email. "One shooting or criminal incident involving a firearm is one too many. With that said, from a law enforcement perspective, any proactive or supportive measure aimed at enforcing gun-related crimes in the state of Connecticut is certainly welcomed."

Lamont is looking to limit untraceable "ghost guns," which are guns without serial numbers that are often sold as parts needing assembly. His proposal is to require pre-2019 "ghost guns" to be registered.

Nolan said the "ghost gun" proposal is one of his top priorities in terms of gun-related legislation. "As much as people are angry, thinking we're trying to take away the opportunity to have guns, that's not it, it's just the fact that I don't think you should have a weapon that's untraceable," he said. "They're so dangerous to our community. Hopefully we're going to be getting some new technology in New London to help us fight that problem, and hopefully our surrounding communities will do that also."

Kathy Verano, CEO of nonprofit Safe Futures, which works to address domestic and sexual violence, said she'd be keeping a particularly close eye on one of Lamont's proposals, which would make it so people with domestic violence convictions could not hold a state gun permit.

"Anyone who's been convicted of domestic violence is automatically disqualified from holding a gun federally, but not from holding a state permit," she said. "I think they're trying to connect the two and fill that gap."

s.spinella@theday.com