The Connecticut Effect

The NRA calmed its gun company masters and its easily panicked minions by sagely suggesting that staving off anti- massacre-by-gun  laws was just a matter of waiting out the "Connecticut Effect"--the national response to the assault rifle slaughter of 6 year olds in Newtown.

But suddenly there's another kind of Connecticut Effect.  The state government of Connecticut is poised to enact the most "far reaching gun control package in the country."  Its centerpiece is banning high capacity ammunition magazines--all new sales immediately, the registration of all existing magazines, and it bans shooting with these magazines anywhere but at a registered gun range.

Moreover, it is a thoroughly bipartisan plan.  Connecticut has a Democratic governor, and Dem majorities in its legislature.  But a process that included extensive public hearings also included extensive consultations and work with Republican legislators, to craft the legislation.

It is by far the most dramatic and the most hopeful outcome so far.  With the U.S. Congress beset by craven cowardice, it is in the states that progress is being made.  The Connecticut Effect may be to show the way.