In a letter dated September 10th, 2013, the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection (DESPP) admitted to 'mistakes’ in sending threatening letters to citizens that were the subject of Ex Parte restraining orders and unlawfully demanding the surrender of their firearms under the threat of arrest. The letter comes as an apparent response to Attorney Rachel M. Baird’s criminal complaint sent to the FBI against the DESPP for deprivation of civil rights.
While the DESPP assures us that these kinds of threats are to be ‘no longer mailed when an ex parte restraining order is issued’, we still have serious concerns about this and other topics when the DESPP and their legal counsel were unable previously to properly distinguish between an Ex Parte restraining order and a restraining order. The facts of this case as well as others only serve to further emphasize the severe lack of legal understanding within the Connecticut State Police.
Connecticut Carry expects that this lack of understanding is only going to get worse considering the 130+ page gun ban implemented by our legislature as of 4/4/2013. We first publicized the topic of Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection threatening gun owners back on July 1st, 2013.
The lack of understanding of these basic legal constructs as well as the constitutional issues exposed within them was the subject of a letter to the US House of Representatives and Senate after Senators Blumenthal and Murphy signed on to try and change the legislation to cover DESPP’s tracks.
No agency, whether federal, state or municipal should be issuing threats of arrest without a full understanding of the law.
