Newtown Still Raw For Malloy
by Christine Stuart and Hugh McQuaid | Jan 9, 2013 3:31pm
(10) Comments | Commenting has expired
Posted to: Town News, Hartford, Newtown, State Budget, State Capitol
(Updated 4:36 p.m.)It wasn’t the speech Gov. Dannel P. Malloy envisioned giving to start the third year of his term. Malloy, who has yet to announce a 2014 re-election bid, got emotional as he talked about the Sandy Hook School shooting and the bravery of the teachers and first responders.
A man known more for his sharp elbows and tough work ethic, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle said there’s nothing an elected official can do to prepare for such a tragedy.
It fell to Malloy, who raced down to Newtown Dec. 14 when he got the news, to inform some of the the 26 victims’ families that their loved ones weren’t coming home. Those emotions were still raw for the governor as he rang in the start of the 2013 legislative session with his State of the State address.
Malloy’s voice faltered Wednesday when he looked across the House Chamber at Newtown First Selectwoman Patricia Llodra and School Superintendent Janet Robinson, who were seated next to his wife and sons.
Read the full text of his speech here. Audio also is available here.
“What befell Newtown is not something we thought possible in any of Connecticut’s beautiful towns or cities. And yet, in the midst of one of the worst days in our history, we also saw the best of our state,” Malloy said in a shaky voice.
It didn’t take long for Malloy to regain his composure as he transitioned to gun control, and later the state’s budget deficit and economic challenges.
“When it comes to preventing future acts of violence in our schools, let me say this: more guns are not the answer,” Malloy said to a standing ovation. “Freedom is not a handgun on the hip of every teacher, and security should not mean a guard posted outside every classroom.”
Malloy formed a 16-member advisory commission to recommend public policy for mental health, gun control, and school security, but House Speaker Brendan Sharkey said he thinks the legislature can tackle some of the issues by the end of February.
Sharkey, House Minority Leader Lawrence Cafero, and the chairs of the Public Safety Committee visited state police headquarters yesterday to learn more about gun permitting and sale issues.
“I went in thinking there’s some clear, low-hanging fruit we can act on right away and what I came away with was those solutions may not be the panacea we expect,” Sharkey said. “I think we might have to go a little deeper.”
But at the end of the day, Sharkey walked away thinking gun control is not an issue that’s dividing Connecticut along party lines. He said as long as it’s done in an intelligent way and brings in the other side to hear the whole issue and act appropriately — that will produce the best legislation in the long-term.
“The worst thing we can do is have a knee-jerk reaction and act too quickly,” Sharkey said following Malloy’s speech.
Cafero agreed that gun legislation is not a partisan issue here in Connecticut.
“The incident that rang through the world happened here in Connecticut and we are going to deal with it one way or the other,” Cafero said after Malloy’s speech. “I hope Washington is not only watching what we do, but how we do it.”
Cafero said there are Republicans and Democrats on both sides of the issue. He said he hopes the legislative response to the Sandy Hook shootings will be as bipartisan as the deficit mitigation bill the General Assembly passed last month.
While many officials have suggested banning ammunition magazines that carry more than 10 rounds, Cafero said he came away from Tuesday’s meeting feeling like the proposal would be ineffective given how many of the magazines are already out there.
“There are hundreds of thousands — if not millions — of high capacity magazines that are already there and by banning them, you make them immediately illegal. And if you think people are going to turn them in, you’ve got another thing coming,” he said.
Cafero suggested that passing a law that requires gun owners to get a permit in order to purchase any rifle that uses an external magazine. Currently, someone buying a handgun is required to have a permit but owners of long guns are not required to have one.
“That goes a long way without taking away the hunting rifle, etc. There are a lot of things we could do,” he said.
But gun control isn’t the only issue facing the state.
Malloy acknowledged they’ve tackled some tough fiscal issues in the past and will be asked to do the same again as Connecticut, like the rest of the nation, waits for the economy to recover.
However, Malloy is bullish about his ability to erase budget deficits. He won’t let lawmakers or the general public forget that when he took office two years ago the state faced “the single largest per-capita deficit in the nation.” In his first year, Malloy and the Democrats in the legislature erased a $3.67 billion deficit with tax increases and changes to the state’s relationship with its labor unions.
“We came together and passed a balanced budget. We cut more than we added in new revenue,” Malloy said Wednesday.
“Anyone who tells you that the budget we passed two years ago didn’t do its job, that it didn’t make real change in how we approach our finances, is simply not telling the truth,” Malloy said. ”I know that many of you cast hard votes to fix those problems. That’s the kind of resolve and leadership that we’re bringing back to Connecticut.”
Following the speech, Republicans pushed back on the assertion they haven’t been telling the truth when they’ve said Malloy’s budget didn’t do its job. Cafero said Malloy was using “revisionist history” as he looked back on the impact of his first two year budget.
He said fewer people are working in the state than were two years ago, unemployment is still hovering around 8.8 percent, and the state is once again facing a multi-billion deficit over the next biennium. Malloy and lawmakers will tackle another $2.3 billion budget deficit over the next two years.
“Anyone who believes that we in the state of Connecticut are in a better place than we were two years ago, I’d like to hear why. Obviously, he does and I disagree with it,” Cafero said.
Senate Republican Leader John McKinney said he wasn’t surprised Malloy did not dwell on the state’s fiscal woes during his address. He said no one likes to focus on bad news. Still, McKinney thought the governor went a little far if he was accusing Republicans who disagreed with the success of his budget of lying.
But McKinney seemed optimistic about this year’s upcoming budget negotiations due to the bipartisan nature with which lawmakers and the governor’s office erased most of last year’s deficit. He said he expects Republicans will be included this year.
“I’m going to engage in a bipartisan budget process starting now until I’m told otherwise. And if it’s otherwise, then they’ll leave me with no choice but to propose an alternative and criticize his where I think it deserves to be criticized,” he said.
In the meantime, Malloy talked about the ongoing national conversation regarding competition among states for businesses.
“We can’t stick our heads in the sand or simply hope for the best. Not when other states are actively recruiting jobs from every corner of the globe — jobs that can and should come to Connecticut,” Malloy said.
Malloy has received some criticism for his program that gives low-interest loans and grants to companies that promise to create 200 jobs over a certain period of time. But thus far Malloy has pushed back and made it clear that he isn’t ready to back down from his position.
He said the program, which has given money to a handful of companies in addition to a nonprofit genetic research laboratory in Farmington, has driven more than $2 billion in private investment.
“We must compete for every single job. With that mindset, we’ve begun to tackle the challenge of economic development in a holistic way,” Malloy said.
Malloy, a history buff, ended his speech by reminding the state that it has a history for overcoming challenges.
Tags: Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, Lawrence Cafero, Brendan Sharkey, budget deficit, Newtown, gun control, permit, Hugh McQuaid, dh
(10) Comments
posted by: BMC556 | January 9, 2013 5:26pm
I can remember when state hospitals housed and provided 24 hour supervision for mentally deranged individuals such as Adam Lanza. The mass de-institutionalization of these patients took place in the late 70’s and early 80’s and the state facilities were closed. Drug therapy was thought to be more cost effective. Since then, our children have been pumped full of psychiatric pharmaceuticals which alter their brain chemistry and sometimes result in violent behavior. I do not understand why GUNS are always blamed while the antidepressant and antipsychotic medications being ingested by 90% of these mass killers is never mentioned. I suspect it is because there is too much MONEY involved.
The Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) has raised concerns about severe acts of violence as side effects of anti-psychotic and antidepressant drugs not only on individuals but on society as well.
PRWeb described drug induced violence as “medicine’s best kept secret.” And the Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHRI) is calling for a federal investigation on its web page which links no less than 14 mass killings to the use of psychiatric drugs such as Prozac and Paxil.
It is time our society look at our growing epidemic of addiction to pharmaceutical drugs and the role those drugs may play in the epidemic of mass killings. We must demand investigations be transparent regarding the use of psychiatric drugs by these killers. This is not a time when major pharmaceutical companies should be allowed to hide behind doctor patient privilege. We deserve to know the truth, regardless of the campaign contributions pharmaceutical companies have made to our elected officials.
posted by: NoNonsense2012 | January 9, 2013 10:30pm
I have seen no credible evidence that, until he committed a horrific act, Adam Lanza was known to be “mentally deranged”. How interesting: we must not even consider strengthening gun laws, lest we upset law-abiding, gun-owning citizens, because of the mass killings committed by a mere handful of shooters; but, because some of those shooters (assuming for the sake of argument this is true) were on prescribed psychiatric medications, we must take away those medications from the millions of people who are helped by those drugs to lead sane, productive, non-violent lives. Just because some “institute” has a fancy-schmancy name doesn’t mean its opinions are credible. What do they suggest doing about the killers who were NOT on prescribed, legal psychiatric medications, but who WERE self-medicating with alcohol and illegal drugs?
So many of the “we-don’t-need-no-stinking-gun-law” folks sound pretty deranged (Alex Jones, for one) and might just benefit from a little pharmaceutical help.
posted by: Noteworthy | January 10, 2013 8:17am
Observations:
1. Nobody but the NRA has suggested putting police and guns in every school. False argument.
2. On matters of the budget, it in fact was not balanced when it was passed, contrary to what Malloy alleges. In fact, almost immediately, it started running a deficit in part because his so called savings ideas weren’t real or didn’t yield the alleged savings he claimed and that legitimate body could verify. More importantly, continuing budget projections are off by more than a billion dollars. That is not balanced.
3. Were there savings? Yes. And then Malloy spent the savings and even more so that net budget increased spending by more than a billion dollars and added significantly to our debt.
4. Nod to History - yes, we’ve overcome challenges in the past. In large measure, we are facing self inflicted problems, paticularly as it relates to our fiscal fiasco.
posted by: burbanite | January 10, 2013 2:35pm
To Connecticut politicians:
Connecticut caused its own problems now it wants to blame someone else.
Your tough gun laws did nothing to save those kids, just as any new anti gun laws will not prevent it from happening again. Why will you people never, ever learn from your mistakes? It is just reprehensible that you use gun owners as scapegoats for your failure at your chosen careers, perhaps you should look inside yourselves and be honest about what you are doing and why. Make Connecticut a model for gun control? It already is a model for how ineffective it is.
This is not a fact based argument any longer, all of you know and understand the facts just as well as I do. Unlike me, you choose to ignore them because you don’t want to use those facts to solve this problem, shame on you all.
You and you alone are responsible for those dead babies and yet you will do absolutely nothing to make any difference.
Sarah Brady was right when she said “the time for talk is over”, yes it is, it’s time for action and action is what you will see from now on. Like I said, this has moved beyond facts, this is now a cultural difference and the gap is ever widening. You people are an embarrassment to yourselves and to the rest of us.
posted by: Reasonable | January 10, 2013 8:54pm
BMC556: In Connecticut, our politicians “play games with the truth in their ploy to be politically correct.” If the State Hospital in Newtown was not eliminated by our politicians, Adam Lanza might have been committed to the Newtown State Hospital and getting the treatment and supervision he was obviously lacking.
posted by: sofaman | January 11, 2013 9:33am
@burbanite. “You people” ! Gotta love it. Here’s something that is apparently beyond your capacity of observation: Guns are ALWAY, used in mass murders. OK, we can mention the Bath school bombing of the ‘30s, or Oklahoma City, so we’re down to 99%. But you are correct in admitting the issue is largely cultural. The gun culture kooks who would rather see mass murder over and over and over again, instead of move one inch on gun control. The problem of Sandy Hook showed that there are TOO LITTLE gun control measures in place. In the future homes with heavily-medicated patients won’t be allowed to have guns. That is one obvious solution. Would love to hear your thoughts on why the NRA fought to allow those on the US Terrorist watch list still be allowed to purchase a gun. “You people” are NOT going to steer this gun conversation another day.
posted by: Ernie | January 13, 2013 10:48am
I have something to say::
As you heard time and time again, if you take guns from the honest gun owner only the criminals will have them. I lost a son due to illegal drugs, and one of the reasons is criminals and drug dealers are selling them and you the Gov can’t stop it.
Have you checked the amount of drugs in schools from grade 4th and up? and not just the inner cities. There are more deaths of children and adults due to illegal drugs than anything else, and let’s not talk about alcohol and drunk drivers that you the Gov can’t seem to stop.
You the Gov can’t protect us from the drugs on the street, how do you plan to protect us from an armed criminal with a welcome sign on every household door? Let’s forget the 2nd Amendment for a minute because apparently you don’t believe in it on this issue.
Let’s go right to human beings, born to be a free person. And when it comes to our Constitution, that our men and women died for, to protect, it seems you the Gov must think it a lunch menu and you the Gov want to pick and choose like ordering lunch. If it’s not to your liking you will scratch it off the menu.
If you forgot , life is freedom, that’s why the constitution was written, to protect us from hostile Gov. You don’t care about the poor families that lost their loved ones. If you did you wouldn’t be prostituting their loss. You should be letting them grieve and get on with their life.
I have a question…Why are you (the Gov) so afraid of honest gun owners? What are you (the Gov) up to? Hum!!
The deaths of those at Sandy Hook was just a reason to ban guns from the honest gun owner, WHY? and your selfish reason to garner votes.
I really don’t care to hear guns kill, because there are hundreds of other thing that kill, WHY the honest gun owners.
I’d like to end is with the traditional thank you, but in this case I have nothing to thank you for.
posted by: gutbomb86 | January 13, 2013 11:05pm
Wow a lot of folks are just flat wrong in their logic.
Sad to say, the legal owners of firearms are part of the problem. The shooter’s mother was a legal owner, and she proved the inconvenient fact that a lot of gun owners are not doing what needs to be done to secure their firearms. Math tells us, unequivocally, that the presence of firearms adds to the risk of shooting occurrences no matter who owns them because they are only secure most of the time at best.
Let’s take an honest look here - by and large, firearms used illegally enter into private ownership legally. People are not safeguarding their weapons. The gun show loophole essentially circumvents the law anyway, and has for a long time. A great deal of damage has been done by that, and we are less safe as a nation because of it.
A nation with 300 million people doesn’t need 300 million privately owned firearms. We would have a much lower risk of shootings if there were something closer to 30 million guns in private circulation.
Some of the loudest gun advocates are the least stable individuals I’ve ever met. Sad but true. The crazies need to be disarmed.
Policy is a hard question and requires sophisticated answers. How about this for a start - new gun safety protocol, including mandatory gun safe installation and inspection(s) in home. Including unannounced inspections. That’s a dicey proposition for the folks who like to bring up the Hitler nonsense, but I’m fine with discussing that here. Gun safety inspections might lead to fewer firearms disappearing and more responsibility on the part of “law abiding” gun owners who, right now, are really only subject to a loose honor system in terms of how they safeguard their weapons.
And, before we start buying back millions of firearms while new ones are still being dumped into the marketplace, let’s simply end the production of most guns for consumers. Easier said than done, but the gov’t is generally a huge contractor in the marketplace, so ending gov’t contracts for gun makers who don’t comply would be a step in the right direction. Simply by manufacturing LESS guns, in a few year we will reverse the proliferation epidemic and create a better value system with some level of scarcity. Not a “ban” per se, but a ban on the production of new firearms might actually help.
Further, if you really are interested in honoring the meaning of the 2nd amendment, then you shouldn’t be complaining about an effort to keep firearms out of the hands of the mentally ill and/or substance abusers. Bottom line here is simple - even the best gun safe can be stolen. The mentally ill and chronic substance abusers have no business with firearms other than to hurt other people. In fact, if people are serious about gun safety there won’t be any alcohol consumed around guns at all. That’s another dicey policy issue and I’m open to discussion of penalties for firearm owners who are publicly drunk, etc.
We need to better safeguard the weapons we have, MUCH better, and we need to end the rampant proliferation of tens of thousands of these things on a monthly basis.
posted by: gutbomb86 | January 13, 2013 11:19pm
And it’s time to revisit tracking all firearms and all bullets. That’s long overdue.
posted by: endmalloysineptemployment | January 28, 2013 10:38am
ct.news junkie"malloy who has yet to announce a 2014 re-election bid” well ct news junkie let me help you with that announcemen. Dishonest malloy does not want us voters to be able to say we terminated his inept and dishonest employment and with his dillusion of after raising and giving all our tax money to the wealthy and believing the wealthy is going to get him elected to dc, no ct news junkie dishonest selfserving bully malloy will not be announcing his 2014 re-election bid.