LISA FODERARO & KRISTIN HUSSEY: After Florida Killings, Gun-Control Lessons From Connecticut

In the aftermath of the rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, where 20 children and six educators were killed in 2012, state lawmakers set out to draft some of the toughest gun measures in the country.

After Connecticut’s General Assembly passed the package of gun laws, and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, a Democrat, signed it into law, gun-related deaths started to drop. According to the chief medical examiner’s office in Connecticut, the number of deaths resulting from firearms — including homicides, suicides and accidents — fell to 164 in 2016, from 226 in 2012.

There is no doubt there are limits to state and local gun laws. Cities like Chicago and Baltimore, with rigorous gun laws, also have two of the highest murder rates in the country. The black market for illegal guns has thrived in those cities, with gang members and criminals turning to the streets to get firearms.

And the drop in fatal shootings in Connecticut has occurred in the context of a broad, long-term decline in violent crime across the country. Citing FBI statistics, the Pew Research Center reports that violent crime fell 48 percent from 1993 to 2016.

Gun-rights groups say the problem is not the guns, but the individuals using them. They argue that laws alone are no panacea, and that social issues like mental illness and unemployment must be addressed to help curb gun violence. Some gun advocates have also called for more training and security for those who legally and responsibly maintain guns.

Still, with little appetite in Congress to take on gun control, the debate is playing out at the state level, with Connecticut seen as a model for gun-control advocates.

“Connecticut’s laws are among the nation’s toughest, and homicides are down,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said. “Obviously the link is a circumstantial one; cause and effect can’t be proven conclusively. But the numbers are all in the right direction. States like Connecticut can help shame Congress into adopting common-sense measures that keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people.”

State officials say Connecticut has experienced the fastest drop in violent crime of any state over the past four years. Gun-control advocates say the suspect in Florida, Nikolas Cruz, could not have bought the AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle believed used in the attack, or the high-capacity magazines, in Connecticut.

The Giffords Center, which keeps a state-by-state report card, gave Connecticut an A-minus for its gun laws — the same grade given to New York, which moved even more swiftly after Sandy Hook to pass stricter laws. The center ranked Connecticut 46th and New York 48th for their gun death rates, among the five lowest in the United States.

In New York, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed a law a month after the massacre at Sandy Hook that is, in some respects, stricter than the one in Connecticut. The New York law not only bans the sale of assault weapons and imposes universal background checks, it also prohibits both the sale — and possession — of magazines with a capacity of more than 10 rounds. And it requires mental health professionals to alert authorities about at-risk patients who should not be allowed to buy a firearm. As of Feb. 8, 77,447 people deemed to be dangerously mentally ill had been added to the database.

At a news conference in April 2013, on the day lawmakers announced an agreement on gun control, Nicole Hockley, whose son, Dylan, died at Sandy Hook, said: “We ask ourselves every day — every minute — if those magazines had held 10 rounds, forcing the shooter to reload at least six more times, would our children be alive today?”

Connecticut’s sweeping gun laws require residents who already owned high-capacity magazines and assault rifles to register them with the State Police. Today, the registry lists 52,648 assault weapons. A single resident registered 179 assault weapons, while another registered more than 500,000 magazines exceeding the 10-round limit. Between 2013 and 2017, 248 people were charged with illegally possessing an assault weapon because they either failed to register an existing weapon or had bought a weapon after the law went into effect.

The state also requires that individuals admitted to psychiatric hospitals relinquish their guns, at least temporarily. The State Police is notified of such patients by the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, which maintains a database, and ensures that upon discharge the gun owner turns in the weapon or transfers it to someone eligible for a gun permit. In addition, people who were previously treated in a mental hospital cannot get a permit for up to two years afterward.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation, a lobby group in Newtown, declined to comment on the impact of Connecticut’s gun laws “out of respect for the families, the community and the ongoing law enforcement investigation” in Parkland. The National Rifle Association did not respond to a request to comment. Connecticut is also one of a few of states with another gun law with some teeth — an “extreme risk protection order.” Akin to a restraining order for domestic violence victims, the protection order, which predates Sandy Hook, gives the police the power to temporarily take away an individual’s guns if a person makes threats, acts violently, abuses drugs or commits animal cruelty.

In the Florida massacre, officials believe the gunman may have made threatening comments on social media, including one in September — “I’m going to be a professional school shooter” — and had also posted a photo of a bloodied frog.

A study that examined Connecticut’s risk protection order found that, from 1999 to 2013, 99 percent of warrants led to the confiscation of at least one gun. In nearly half the cases, the gun owner wound up getting psychiatric treatment.

Mike Lawlor, the criminal justice adviser to Malloy, said the law arose from two high-profile shootings in the 1990s by people with severe mental health issues. “When there’s no law that’s actually been broken, but when there is real evidence that the person is a danger to others, the police need to have an option,” he said. “Step one is to get the guns.”