The Second Amendment Battle In Connecticut Heats Up

On Bearing Arms’ Cam & Co, host Cam Edwards opened with what he called “goodish news” for Connecticut gun owners: the challenge to the state’s ban on so-called assault weapons – brought by the Connecticut Citizens Defense League and the Second Amendment Foundation – has now reached the Supreme Court in the form of an emergency request for injunctive relief. 

As Edwards explained, the case has dragged on for years without a trial on the merits, and both the district court and the Second Circuit declined to block the ban while litigation proceeds. 

CCDL head Holly Sullivan told Edwards the delays illustrate a broader reality across Second Amendment litigation – “the wheels of justice grind slowly” – but the stakes justify a direct appeal for relief now.

Sullivan argued that the lower courts’ reasoning is not just unfavorable to gun owners; it is fundamentally out of step with Supreme Court precedent. 

She pointed to what the petition describes as an elastic test in the Second Circuit, one that narrows protection to firearms “in common use for active self-defense” while relegating arms used for hunting, recreational shooting, and collecting outside the Second Amendment’s core. 

Edwards summarized the practical outcome of that logic in plain terms: a bolt-action deer rifle could be banned while a home-defense handgun survives – contradicting the Supreme Court’s recognition that lawful purposes include but are not limited to self-defense.

As a matter of constitutional design, that kind of narrowing invites the very legislative second-guessing the Court has cautioned against. 

If the Second Amendment’s scope can be reshaped around whatever a legislature deems “active self-defense,” nearly any category of common firearms becomes vulnerable. That is precisely why, in Sullivan’s view, the Supreme Court “has to figure this out.”

‘Dangerous and Unusual’ Becomes ‘Unusually Dangerous’ – And Why That Matters

Both Edwards and Sullivan highlighted another problem: the way some lower courts are recasting the Supreme Court’s “dangerous and unusual” framework into a novel “unusually dangerous” standard. 

Sullivan said that linguistic sleight-of-hand flips the analysis on its head and effectively empowers lawmakers to label almost anything unusually dangerous and therefore ban it – an approach at odds with decisions like Heller, McDonald, Caetano, and Bruen. Edwards was blunter, calling the rewording “just as dumb” as arguments elsewhere that equate AR-15s to machine guns.

From a reporter’s perspective, this is not a semantic quibble. “Dangerous and unusual” historically refers to arms that are both rare and especially associated with criminal misuse, while “unusually dangerous” turns the emphasis to perceived danger alone and invites subjective judgment untethered from commonality. 

As Sullivan put it, courts misreading binding precedent undermines the justice system – and the Court may feel compelled to correct that drift.

Edwards noted that Justice Kavanaugh has already signaled the justices expect to take up these issues “in a term or two,” and the Court has shown a willingness this term to take interim questions in cases like Wolford v. Lopez from Hawaii. 

Sullivan said her hope is that the Connecticut petition can be evaluated alongside other live vehicles – Cook County’s ban, New Jersey’s litigation, challenges from California and Washington – so the Court can address the growing conflict coherently. 

The broader point, echoed by both: Americans are “almost living in different countries” when it comes to the Second Amendment, and the divide is widening.

A Parallel Fight: Connecticut’s AG Trains His Sights on Ruger

The show shifted from courtrooms to the attorney general’s office. Edwards described how Everytown Law sent Ruger a letter about the company’s RXM pistol – arguing its compatibility with Glock Gen 3 parts makes it “convertible” to full auto – and copied Connecticut Attorney General William Tong. 

Tong promptly fired off his own letter warning of civil action under the state’s Firearms Industry Responsibility Act unless Ruger redesigns or withdraws the model.

Sullivan, who knows Tong’s record from his years as a legislator, said none of this surprised Connecticut activists. 

She described Tong as a longtime, emphatic supporter of gun restrictions, backed by well-funded advocacy groups, and suggested his office is now wielding the industry-liability statute as a pressure tool against design choices the state disfavors.

Edwards read from Tong’s letter, which invokes “reasonable controls” to prevent products that are “reasonably foreseeable” to be converted into illegal firearms. As Edwards observed, those phrases are so open-ended they could be stretched to cover commonplace design features in nearly any modern firearm and even ordinary long guns that could be unlawfully altered. That breadth is not accidental; it is the point. 

Sullivan’s policy critique was straightforward: when the legislature is dominated by one side, statutes like this sail through, then become leverage for the attorney general to reshape the market through threat of litigation.

From an industry and consumer standpoint, the chilling effect is obvious. If compatibility, modularity, or parts interchangeability can be recast as “foreseeable conversion,” designers will be driven toward bespoke ecosystems that raise costs, restrict repair, and reduce safety upgrades – ironically undermining durability and reliability, the very attributes demanded by responsible owners. The result is policy by lawsuit threat, not by clear standards.

Advocacy in the Trenches: ‘Membership’ Isn’t Enough Without Muscle

The conversation closed where most state-level fights are decided: organization and turnout. Edwards praised CCDL’s ability to “punch above its weight” in a difficult environment. Sullivan responded that the group now produces overwhelming volumes of testimony against bills, but testimony alone cannot stop legislation when the vote whip count is locked in. 

She urged gun owners to move beyond social-media membership and become dues-paying, action-oriented supporters who flip seats, fund litigation, and answer action alerts.

The appeal was not confined to Connecticut. Sullivan invited support from gun owners nationwide, arguing that regional setbacks quickly migrate through model legislation. Her ask was concrete: join at CCDL’s website at a tier that meaningfully underwrites long-running lawsuits, which require years of attorney time and coordinated strategy. 

The message dovetailed with Edwards’s warning to Virginians that his state may soon “turn into South Connecticut” after recent elections, with an incoming wave of new restrictions already queued up for introduction.

There is a practical lesson here. Courts matter, but coalitions matter first. When legislatures harden against one side, the courts become the only safety valve – and the docket fills with costly emergency work that could have been mitigated by electoral defense. 

Groups like CCDL exist to build that connective tissue. Without sustained, disciplined organizing, litigation turns from a scalpel into a tourniquet.

What Comes Next – and What to Watch

Edwards believes one or more “assault weapon” cases will be accepted by the Supreme Court within the next term or two, especially if a circuit split emerges. He mentioned optimism that the Third Circuit could strike down New Jersey’s ban, creating the kind of conflict the Court prefers to resolve. 

Sullivan agreed that the justices may weigh multiple vehicles together to unify standards on common use, historical tradition, and the proper understanding of “dangerous and unusual.”

On Connecticut specifically, two tracks now run in parallel. First is CCDL and SAF’s bid for interim relief – a chance, if granted, to halt ongoing harm while the merits proceed. Second is the emerging enforcement posture from the attorney general, which will test how far the state’s new liability statute can be stretched against design features and parts compatibility. 

Those moves will ripple beyond Hartford; manufacturers and retailers operating nationwide watch for theories that might be exported to other states.

Stepping back, the interview underscored a larger reality that both Edwards and Sullivan have warned about for years. The Supreme Court’s framework in Heller, McDonald, Caetano, and Bruen is only as effective as its application by lower courts. 

When courts rewrite “dangerous and unusual” into “unusually dangerous,” or confine protection to arms in “active self-defense,” they are not merely interpreting precedent – they are reshaping it. That is how a constitutional right becomes a regional permission slip.

As a matter of law and policy, clarity from the Supreme Court would help settle the field. But clarity cannot substitute for civic engagement. That was Sullivan’s final message on Cam & Co: show up, fund the effort, and convert quiet agreement into votes and victories. 

Otherwise, as Edwards cautioned, more states will resemble Connecticut – where the most popular rifles in America are contraband, and where creative liability theories hover over design desks before a single product reaches a shelf.