On February 5th, Senior Assistant State's Attorney Timothy Sugrue published a memorandum to the Chief State’s Attorney’s Office detailing first what everyone in Connecticut should already know: The unconcealed carry of a firearm with a valid Permit to Carry Pistols or Revolvers is 100% lawful, and that police cannot stop a person carrying a firearm unconcealed (Open Carry) to demand their permit absent Reasonable Articulable Suspicion of a crime.
That is detailed on page one of the memorandum. But the memorandum goes on for 5 more pages describing how police in Connecticut can still get away with harassing and detaining citizens not breaking the law. Instead of doing what the State’s Attorney’s office should have done long ago, and clarifying the issue as we have requested, they went on to add to the confusion that police departments experience. Clarifying the issue only needed the first page’s response, nothing else. But this document was not created to clarify, it was created as a handbook for harassment.
And so, the illegal harassment and detainments of law abiding citizens carrying firearms in a manner prescribed by the law will likely continue by departments that are politically motivated to do so.
“The State’s Attorney’s Office has made it clear that they will put their collectivist politics over the need for them to perform their job as advocates of the law. Mentioning mass shootings and the fear-based political climates that their collectivist ilk have manufactured to describe how police should interact with law abiding members of the population is the height of propaganda.” – Connecticut Carry President Rich Burgess
