Federal funding coming to Connecticut to reduce gun violence, streamline red flag laws

HARTFORD, Conn. (WTNH) — State leaders announced federal funding is coming to Connecticut to tackle ghost guns, drive down gun violence and streamline red flag laws. The funds are part of an executive order by President Joe Biden and the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.

“We’re going to keep pushing until kids stop dying, and when that happens, families will not be shattered,” Mike Song with the Ethan Miller Song Foundation said.

Song lost her 15-year-old son Ethan in January 2018 after he accidentally shot himself with an unsecured gun at a friend’s house.

The capital city serves as a standard where community-based intervention is working.

“We have seen historic drops in shootings, historic drops in murder, because we’re focusing on what really makes our community safe,” Hartford Mayor Arunan Arulampalam said.

Democratic U.S. senators Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy announced on Friday that federal funding is coming to Connecticut as part of a presidential executive order.

“We’re announcing $1 million coming to Connecticut to implement more effectively and enforce more rigorously red flag statutes that keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers and people who are a danger to themselves or others,” Blumenthal said.

Those federal dollars earmarked for our state are part of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. It’s a portion of $135 million being spread across the country to better implement red flag statutes and train law enforcement and school districts.

“It is not a coincidence that we’ve seen this big decline in shooting victims in Hartford and in cities all across the country during the two-year period of time that we’ve been implementing the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act,” Murphy said.

The executive order also strengthens Ethan’s Law, requiring gun owners to securely store firearms if a minor can gain access.

“We’re just at that moment where things are shifting, and the whole country is waking up to the fact that if you’ve got kids in your house, you should lock up your firearm,” Song said. “That’s why this executive order means so much to my wife Kristen [his wife] and I.”

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