This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

Thousands Rally to Support CT Gun Owners' Rights

To mark the day that will live in infamy, supporters of gun owners' gathered in Hartford Saturday to call for the repeal of PA13-3, the new gun laws passed in the wake of the Newtown tragedy.

On a blustery Saturday, thousands of Second Amendment supports came from across Connecticut to mark the infamous first anniversary of the passage of the new CT gun law and, most importantly, to call for its repeal. The rally drew like-minded supporters from nearby New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and as far away as Virginia, West Virginia, Georgia, Mississippi and even Montana. Capitol police indicated that the crowd exceeded 3,000 attendees while other observers put the total closer to 5,000 at the rally’s peak.

Connecticut Citizens’ Defense League (CCDL) sponsored the rally.  Scott Wilson, president of the CCDL, told the crowd that Governor Malloy referred to “us all as the fringe of the fringe.” He said the governor told gun owners that they “lost” and should “just get over it”. 

“I don’t know about you, but I am only not over it, I am madder than hell,” Wilson said to cheers from the crowd. “Gun control was the fig leaf that concealed their disastrous failures.”

Find out what's happening in Newtownwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Many attendees exercised their Connecticut right and open carried a myriad of handguns in addition to what was likely many more that were carried concealed. Others openly carried rifles(unloaded of course).

All of the happenings were observed by an respectable showing of the CT State Police who remained in the background during the peaceful gathering. One person was overheard asking the police about all the open carried guns as if he thought multiple felonies were being perpetrated; the popo corrected his lack of knowledge.

Find out what's happening in Newtownwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Over the course of the rally, the gathered masses often chanted in unison things like: “We will not comply”, “Stand and fight” and a version of “Freeeedom” that would have made Mel Gibson’s William Wallace proud.

Bill Stevens of Newtown said he was heartbroken when he heard what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School, but “it wasn’t the AR-15 that killed 26 innocent people in my town. It was a mentally ill shooter who pulled the trigger and this law does nothing to address that.”

Current CT Governor Dannell Malloy was a frequent target of comments from the speakers as well as chants from the crowd, including a very spirited round of shouts of  “Malloy must go”. 

Those who attended the rally included Republican gubernatorial candidates Tom Foley, Martha Dean, and Joe Visconti, all ready supporters of gun owners’ rights. None of them were allowed to speak at the event, but Foley and Dean have addressed the CCDL at their monthly meetings in Middletown.

For those who were unable to attend, the CCDL offered live streaming of the event, which tracked over 4,000 views over the course of the afternoon bringing total real-time engagement to over 7,000.

Meanwhile, speaking of engagement, the related virtual social media rally started by Connecticut Carry was also an outstanding success. Over five days, Connecticut Chooses Liberty garnered active support from 2,426 who helped to sent out the same message to over 907,000 social media contacts:

Rich Burgess of Connecticut Carry said in a press release:

Of even more interest is who is supporting each group. With Connecticut Carry being supported mostly by individuals in a showing of grassroots support, the anti-rights groups have gone the opposite direction being supported mostly by national anti-rights groups and millionaire communist propagandists.

The communist propagandist Rich mentions is none other than Michael Moore who brought his million-plus social reach to the CAGV’s so-called “grass roots” effort. Without that rotund commie, CAGV was able to muster support from only 1,352 supporters who brought them 550,000 in reach. Thus, the far less social media active people of the gun whooped CAGV’s effort even though we started a day later and they enjoy a far more social media savvy following. That is what real grass roots support is all about, not the AstroTurf of Moore, MDA, MAIG and their ilk.

[UPDATE: Moore's respect of gun laws is shown here - laws apply to the little people.]

In all, the twin pro-rights rallies engaged, directly and virtually, hundreds of thousands of Americans and alerted them to the ongoing struggle of gun owners as our rights are under continual attack.

More photos by one of the attendees can be found here and hereand here and here. Video excerpts here and here.

Thanks to all in the TTAG community for your virtual and actual support. If you would like to further support our efforts, you can visit the pages of the top two gun owners’ rights groups in Connecticut, CCDL and CT Carry.

===============

The foregoing was written by Connecticut gun owner CTSheepdog and is used here by permission of the author. 

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?