After Newtown, the gun show is over

I am 74 years old. I have owned a lot of guns. I can tell stories about guns. Here I will tell two — both about me, guns and public schools.When I was 17 and a student at Housatonic Valley Regional High School in Falls Village, I bought a .32-caliber Colt revolver from the kid sitting next to me in Mr. Miller’s mechanical drawing class. We got snitched on, and I was interviewed in the principal’s office by the State Police. Not for having a gun in school. No, the police thought the pistol might have been stolen. That was their concern. I had to ride with the trooper to my house and give him my gun. It turned out that it hadn’t been stolen and I got it back. I was given two weeks to obtain a pistol permit. That was in 1955.The second story is about me as a brand new teacher, teaching high school English. As the new teacher in my school, I was assigned a bunch of rowdies who no one else wanted to teach. To get and keep the attention of that class I did some unorthodox things ... one of which today would get me locked up if not shot by SWAT at my desk in my classroom. I brought in a 7.65 Czech automatic pistol into my classroom, disassembled it at my desk, reassembled it and then gave the pistol to the class to repeat the process. My students worked in groups of three. One person stripped the pistol; one verbalized what was being done; one person wrote down the process. It was an exercise in technical writing. My class really paid attention that morning. Can you imagine a classroom teacher doing such a thing today?It is just a rotten shame that American society has gotten to where it is today — but we are here and public gun violence has got to be made to stop. Let us begin that process, today, here in Connecticut. Let Connecticut be the first to discover, write and make a gun law that is consistent with the Second Amendment of the Constitution. I suggest the following:1. Control and limit the sale and ownership of ammunition. Ammunition should be available only through state stores, the way liquor is sold in New Hampshire. The amount of ammunition that could be bought should be regulated and replenishment dependent upon the shooter returning used cartridge cases. This makes the shooter accountable for every shot he fires.2. Outlaw reloading. (For those who don’t know, shooters can save money by reloading used cartridges.)3. Excepting licensed gun collections and museums, limit legal gun ownership to one firearm per person. This limitation is consistent with the provisions of the Second Amendment and will reduce the number of guns available for circulation.4. Register all guns with the State Police, require training for all would-be gun owners and require the licensing of all gun owners. This is, by law, already being done, but private sales often are not tracked.5. Make illegal the carrying of a handgun — concealed or otherwise. To transport a handgun, make it the law that it must be either disassembled or carried in a locked container.6. Require all privately held guns have trigger locks.7. Require that the physical location of guns kept in private offices or residences be registered with law enforcement and subject to random audit.8. Require that all guns, whatsoever, held in the State of Connecticut be fitted with electronic locator devices and that the codes for such devices be registered with the State Police at the time of sale or resale.9. Interstate sale of guns is to be banned.10. Ban gun sales at gun shows and ban the private sale of guns. Guns should be available for purchase only through licensed police supervised outlets. It may even be thought advantageous and necessary to make gun sales a function of state government, just as liquor is sold in New Hampshire. This would be the single tightest gun control provision consistent with the Constitution that I can think of.11. Ban semi-automatic assault-type rifles.12. Require all guns in excess of one per person be turned into the police and purchased by the state at a fair market price.13. Make violation of the Connecticut Gun Law punishable by mandatory fine and imprisonment.These are my — for starters — suggestions. Wm. Earl Brecher lives in West Cornwall.