Connecticut may allow civil lawsuits against gun makers and dealers if a firearm they sold is used in a crime.
Local gun dealers opposed the bill during a Judiciary Committee public hearing on Wednesday.
Matthew Fleischer of Niantic, who owns a gun shop in Old Lyme, said he didn't understand why he should be held liable if a gun he sells after a state-required background check is used in a crime.
“For this law to hold me liable for something that somebody does with that gun after the state of Connecticut has checked, the government has checked, I don’t understand that process,” he told lawmakers.
“If this law is passed, we would probably not be able to get insurance in the state of Connecticut,” Fleischer said. “So, therefore, you are going to put potentially 650 gun shops out of business. So the financial burden is huge.”
“I think that the quantity of gun sellers is going to look very similar after this is enacted as before,” said David Pucino of the Gifford Law Center, a national gun violence prevention group who helped write the bill.
He assured lawmakers that there has not been a noticeable reduction in the number of gun stores in the nine states that have passed a similar law.
New York was the first state to allow civil lawsuits against gun dealers and manufacturers in 2021.
