Now the campaign to outlaw gun ownership is turning to publicizing the names and addresses of gun license holders. The other day a newspaper in New York posted on its Internet site a map pinpointing local gun license holders, and in Connecticut the House chairman of the General Assembly’s Public Safety Committee, state Rep. Stephen D. Dargan, D-West Haven, proposes to repeal the exemption in the state’s freedom-of-information law to make gun licenses here public records too.Dargan’s nominal rationale is that people with gun licenses are more dangerous than everyone else. That may be plausible in theory but as a practical matter gun permit holders are more law-abiding than most, having been fingerprinted and background-checked, even as gun-toting criminals tend not to apply for permits, lest they can be tracked down more easily.Of course Dargan’s actual rationale is just to embarrass gun license holders, to depict them as kooks and discourage others from trying to obtain gun licenses, on the premise that only the police and criminals should have guns, including the sort of criminals abounding in Connecticut — incorrigible criminals with five, 10, 15, or 20 felony convictions who nevertheless manage to avoid life sentences until they kill someone.But, like all other licenses, gun licenses should be public record anyway, as any license is a grant of government authority whose appropriateness can’t be evaluated otherwise. The arguments offered for secrecy here — avoiding embarrassment and burglars looking for guns — are weak. For far from being cause for embarrassment, a gun license is actually certification of sound character, and few burglars want to risk being noticed perusing a government database or encountering an armed homeowner.Being right for the wrong reason doesn’t make Dargan any less phony. Most things in government, he says, already are subject to disclosure under freedom-of-information law. But in fact the damaging exemptions from disclosure in Connecticut have been increasing for years without complaint from Dargan and other legislators who are now so intent on disarming the law-abiding.Just the other day the Connecticut Council on Freedom of Information called attention to some troubling exemptions in the hope that the General Assembly and Governor Malloy would repair the FOI law. Among these exemptions:• The information police are required to disclose about arrests has been sharply curtailed by a state Appellate Court decision.• The Malloy administration has construed the law forbidding identification of welfare applicants to forbid as well the disclosure of the disciplinary records of the dozens of state employees who last year defrauded state government of food stamps. If this interpretation of the law prevails, the public will have no right to know about any welfare fraud. • State labor law enables public employee unions to negotiate exemption of their members’ personnel files from FOI law. As a result, Central Connecticut State University in New Britain is withholding the file of a professor who has been convicted criminally several times while employed by the university but has kept his job anyway. Betraying the public, the state university system has given the professors union a contract protecting its members against embarrassment for criminal misconduct.• While last year the governor complained about teacher tenure, state law still prohibits disclosure of teacher evaluations, even though conscientious parents would want the right to see them.Connecticut needs to strengthen its freedom-of-information law, generally, not just for gun licenses. Without a general strengthening of the law, Dargan’s legislation will only establish the pernicious principle that people who pass a character test and follow the law should be embarrassed and inconvenienced but state employees who fail a character test and break the law shouldn’t be. Chris Powell is managing editor of the Journal Inquirer in Manchester.
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Greg Fricke and James Boehmer, co-owners of Peggy Mercury in Kent, recently launched their first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts.”
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Fricke and Boehmer are not there to stock their shelves with the same products customers find at standard makeup retailers. They’re there to help customers find what works for them. That usually means asking customers about themselves and learning about their beauty habits, skin, style and the way they like to present themselves. Fricke and Boehmer believe it’s their job to help customers bring out the qualities that suit them and determine what works best for their look.
So much of the Peggy Mercury world is about emboldening people to become more creative, and possibly bolder, versions of themselves. Some of this comes through the store’s creative collaborations with artists, designers and stylists.
It’s part of an ethos that encourages them and their friends to use the shop as a kind of laboratory, trying out new creative experiments without knowing how they might turn out. Whether in fashion, painting, fiber arts or photography, the projects almost always turn out marvelously.
A line of sterling silver charms they sell started as a small project by their friend Nolan Percival. In the beginning, the pieces were for close friends and loved ones. But Boehmer and Fricke encouraged Percival to get a little more serious about the project and create a whole line for the store. Today, it’s one of their top-selling collections.
Classic styles, bold colors, and creative concerts make up the “Imaginary Concerts” line at Peggy Mercury.Provided
“Imaginary Concerts” has the duo taking their own advice.
The project started as a way for Boehmer to connect with his mother, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Taking old concert shirts from his own collection, Boehmer and his mother began cutting out the graphics with the idea that they would make a quilt together. Unfortunately, she died before they could complete the project in 2025. The pieces, which were ready for production, were put on the back burner as Boehmer and Fricke dealt with their loss and the whirlwind of projects that never seemed to cease at Peggy Mercury.
But the harsh winter of 2026 presented an opportunity to take some time and focus on themselves. Part of that meant revisiting and redefining the concert T-shirt project. This time, instead of looking to the warmth and comfort of a quilt, they turned to another passion — fashion.
Taking a page from their own book, they wanted to create something that felt comfortable to them. They took two disparate loves — one rooted in simple preppy style, with clean lines and classic silhouettes, and the other in the nitty gritty worlds of punk rock and pop — and blended them together to create something entirely new. Pulling from the staples of vintage Brooks Brothers and Charvet collections, they applied the graphic elements with bold stitching reminiscent of punk jackets of the ‘70s and ‘80s, but with a much more sophisticated air.
But the remixing isn’t just the pairing of prep and punk. The pieces are not canon. They take liberties with the realities of concert tours, combining one band’s dates with another band’s logos, mixing them all up until the reality is lost and imagination is the only truth.
Shirts from Peggy Mercury’s first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts,” hang on display.Provided
Adding to the mix is an element of perpetual creativity. Art can be messy, both figuratively and literally, and many of Fricke and Boehmer’s artist friends carry evidence of their work on them at all times. As a nod to these tireless creatives, the duo added haphazard splashes of bright color, giving the line an even more distinctive feel.
For them, “Imaginary Concerts” passes the “Peggy Test.” The mythical Peggy Mercury is a fictional figurehead for the company, a character who thrives on creativity and change. The name, much like the clothing line, is a mixture of interests: Mercury is a planet, a deity and an elusive, transformative element, while Peggy is the wonderfully stylish and boundary-pushing Peggy Guggenheim.
Everything Fricke and Boehmer put in their store has to pass this test: Would Peggy Mercury approve? For their first collection, the answer is a resounding yes.
Peggy Mercury is at 9 Maple St., Unit 2, Kent.
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