Connecticut Attorney General Files Lawsuit Against 4 Companies Shipping Ghost Gun Parts to Connecticut
Jose Nino
|
On March 7, 2023, Connecticut Attorney General William Tong filed a lawsuit against 4 firearms manufacturers — all based out of state — for shipping ghost gun parts to Connecticut.
Per a report by Courant, Tong filed the civil lawsuit against two firearm manufacturers from Florida and one from Utah and another from North Carolina after all four companies shipped the parts to an undercover investigator employed with the attorney general’s office, he asserted.
During a press conference on March 7, Tong showcased some of the parts that were shipped to Connecticut, where ghost guns have been prohibited as of October 2019.
“Ghost guns are unserialized, untraceable, unregistered, fully functional, in most cases fully automatic firearms that one can make at home,” Tong said to reporters in Hartford. “These are guns that put Connecticut families, residents and law enforcement at risk because we can’t trace them. … They’re a menace.”
Ghost guns are one of the most popular targets of the gun control crowd.
“With some additional tooling at home, and with a YouTube video, you can turn this into a fully auto AR-15 assault rifle,” Tong stated.
Ghost guns are prohibited or highly regulated in about 10 states and Washington, D.C., but parts are generally manufactured in almost 40 states where the practice is currently legally permissible.
“I just want to make it very clear to the manufacturers and sellers of these ghost gun parts — it is highly illegal to sell these parts here in Connecticut, and if you do that, we are going to come after you,” Tong said to reporters.
Tong cited part of Connecticut state law that says no person shall “purchase, receive, sell, deliver or otherwise transfer an unfinished frame or lower receiver” of a gun.
The four defendants in this lawsuit are Hell Fire Armory (North Carolina), Steel Fox Firearms (Florida), Indie Guns (Florida), and AR Industries (Utah). The defendants “each sold and shipped illegal ghost guns to an undercover investigator from the Office of the Attorney General,” Tong’s office proclaimed.
The lawsuit said the following about ghost gun parts: “Each of the defendants not only sell or sold illegal, unserialized unfinished lower receivers to consumers in Connecticut in violation of state law, but each defendant also mails or mailed these illegal ghost gun parts directly to consumers without confirming whether the consumers are licensed to possess a firearm, or first shipping to a federally licensed firearms dealer, as required by law.”
This lawsuit was filed under the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act, which gave Tong the power to file a lawsuit when accusing the companies of carrying out unfair and deceptive advertising due to how they were selling products that are illegal to own in Connecticut.
The action taken here is to be expected from an anti-gun bastion like Connecticut. Since the Sandy Hook massacre of 2012, Connecticut has gone down a decisively anti-gun path. It is currently ranked in an abysmal 45th place in Guns & Ammo magazine’s best states for gun owners rankings.
As a result, anti-gun actions like the one Tang is pursuing are going to be commonplace. In all honesty, Connecticut gun owners are better served by leaving the state or at least offering resistance at the local level through nullification measures. Pro-gun legislation is simply not going to be passed through conventional means in the state legislature.
Share: