Connecticut Spends $22 Million Luring Gun Seller

[spookyturtle 9,466]

Gotta love this one! I like this line :" It sells the semi-automatic rifles, known as assault weapons, that Adam Lanza used on Dec. 14 to kill 20 children and six adults. "

August 02, 2013|Kevin Rennie, NOW YOU KNOW

Newtown did not change everything in Connecticut public life. The slaughter of 26 innocents at the Sandy Hook School has not caused Democratic and Working Families Gov. Dannel P. Malloy to shed his expensive addiction to corporate welfare. Last week, Malloy's administration announced that it will provide at least $22 million to Bass Pro Shops for a 150,000-square-foot store in Bridgeport.

Bass Pro is one of the nation's most prominent purveyors of guns. It sells the semi-automatic rifles, known as assault weapons, that Adam Lanza used on Dec. 14 to kill 20 children and six adults. Those guns are now illegal in Connecticut, but Bass Pro sells them in stores around the country. It also sells online and in stores the high-capacity ammunition magazines that are also illegal in Connecticut.

When President Barack Obama signed 23 executive orders regulating guns in January, Malloy hailed the action. He declared that in December, "there was one question on the minds of people across Connecticut and around the nation: How do we make sure that this never happens again?" The answer we seek cannot be the one Malloy has provided. Unlike him, we do not want to go into business with sellers of these and other weapons.

Malloy is just beginning heaping his largesse on Bass Pro. The first round of public funds comes from what looks like a political arm of his administration, Connecticut Innovations, known as CI. That's the agency that hired the wife of Democratic U.S. Rep. John Larson last year for an executive assistant's job with, to put it kindly, the thinnest of qualifications.

Now CI is doing more of Malloy's dirty work. The governor is a hostage to the Democratic political machine in Bridgeport that delivered his narrow margin of victory in 2010. Though gun violence continues to rip the social fabric of bloody Bridgeport, the city's leaders want economic development projects at any price, even if it comes with the sale of more guns within its borders as it initiates gun buybacks.

Just before the Newtown killings, Malloy tried to lure an assault weapons manufacturer into the state. His conversion to the ban was born of those horrifying events on that Friday morning. The impact on Malloy's new attitude toward guns has not lasted eight months. It will get worse. The state's Department of Economic and Community Development, the Connecticut Post reported last week, is also negotiating a package of taxpayer goodies with Bass Pro. Expect the hapless commissioner, Catherine Smith, to give the retailer whatever it wants.

The millions for a gun seller is also bad economic policy. Several studies show that Bass Pro stores as anchors for retails centers often fail. The privately owned company is worth billions. It has a pattern of taking hundreds of millions from taxpayers with dubious long-term economic returns.

This is absurd for Connecticut. The legislature banned assault weapons and certain ammunition clips this spring. One result has been high-paying manufacturing jobs are leaving the state. At the same time, taxpayers will hand over millions to a company that sells the weapons the state has banned to create low-paying retail jobs. It makes no sense.

This is all about politics and Malloy's dreary standing with the public. The state's economy continues to decline, so any activity is a plus in the governor's cynical worldview. With his decency deficit, insulting the memory of the innocent dead is no reason for Malloy not to lard other people's money on a gun seller.

http://articles.courant.com/2013-08-02/news/hc-op-rennie-connecticut-spends-millions-on-gun-se-20130802_1_bass-pro-shops-one-malloy-assault-weapons

[Darnell 8,478]

Democrats are pulling this off? Congratulations !

[Peikko 1,575]

What a #######.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

Good to see. CT has a long heriatge as a gun making center, there is no reason it cannot still be this way.

Do you guys know the story iof the Colt Blue Dome in Hartford?

In 1870 the Grand Duke Alexsi of Russia, brother of the Czar, came to the United States for 2 reasons. One was to go Buffalo hunting out west with none other than Buffalo Bill as his guide. The other was to order a large number of Revolvers for the Russian army, Colt and S&W were in the bidding. S&W held the patent for the "bored through" cylinder until 1873 which gave them a distinct advantage in their product. Samuel Colt, being a savvy promoter of firearms (not nearly as good as Barack Obama) had the Blue Dome built to match the types of domes common on Russian Orthodox Churches. This may have made Colt the world's premier @ss kisser.

Anyway, the Grand Duke ordered his revolvers from S&W in a new cartridge he specified which was marketed here as the .44 Russian, This same case was lengthened a little and called the .44 Special in 1907. It is still a popular cartridge and can also fire .44 Russian cartridges. In 1956 the .44 Russian was lengthened again and became the .44 Magnum. Dirty Harry's famous .44 Magnum!

Colt bounced back 3 years later when he sold his revolver to the US army as the M1873 which became known as the "Peacemaker". Though the colt is always depicted in Westerns as the "cowboy" revolver, it was actually very expensive...much more expensive than most cowboys could afford and the S&W Russian, Number 3, and Schofield were actually more commonly used as they were about half the price of a Colt.

Colt has gone through a number of transitions and were the original licensed makers of the AR-15/M16 which is now made by any number of companies.

For a time Colt was owned by the Connecticut Teachers Retirement fund. Colt moves its factory which is now a downtown marketplace and for a while a Company named US Firearms,, had license to make the Colt M1873, in the old factory, in the old manner. They were horrendously expensive, upwards of $4000, and the market for that firearm was small and quickly filled. They were not in business long

Sharps Rifle Co, started in Hartford as well as Colt, AH Fox shotguns, Sturm, Ruger and many others call/called CT home. The Valley from Hartford to Springfiled MA is called "Gun Valley" and was there long before anyone thought of "Silicon Valley"

The Blue Dome is an Icon of Hartford.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

Bass Pro Shops has been a very successful retailer. The NRA just recently opened its "National Sporting Firearms Museum" in a Bass Pro Shops location in Springfield MO. This is an expansion of the National Firearms Museum in Washington DC

The new museum was funded in part with the flood of funds which came to the NRA as membership expanded 30% when Barack Obama attempted to take away our rights.

Bass Pro Shops carries a very wide range of firearms. I especially love their fine shotgun collections. Incredible "Best Grade" English and continental firearms.

While the English make a damn fine gun, and some wonderful rifles, I got lucky to buy a Czech made double gun in Prague in the English "best Grade" tradition for 1/10th the price! I doubt this is the case since they joined the EU. When I worked overseas I kept copies of my friend's importers license with me and had guns shipped to him to await me when I returned. I also got a stunning British Enfield Sporter, .303, a true classic. If you have ever seen the movie "The Ghost and the Darkness" about the maneaters of Tsavo, it is identical to the rifle used by Val Kilmer playing Col. John Patterson. I would have loved to have found one in the old .318 Westley Richards caliber but they are rarer than hens teeth. .303 is pretty common

Awesome store. Welcome to New England!

[spookyturtle 9,466]

Smith and Wesson was ranked number one as the best performing public company in MA by the Boston Globe this year.

[Darnell 8,478]

Spookies - yer MA flag is rippling in the breeze - this topic is about Connecticut..

[spookyturtle 9,466]

Spookies - yer MA flag is rippling in the breeze - this topic is about Connecticut..

It's my topic.