New Haven Independent

Posted by: Cait Sith | December 7, 2006 7:21 PM

Do you really think residents who suffered Ortiz's anti-constitutional policy of NOT GIVING gun permits out are going to drop off their guns that they paid hundreds for? Not to mention the fees involved to get a permit in the first place? No one wants to hand over their valuable, lawfully owned concealed weapon while the criminals run around with them all over the City! Why doesn't Ortiz spend money and resosouces in arresting more felons instead of asking lawful owners to give away their protection? Maybe if we lived in The Land of Oz and there was a 0% crime rate. All this is political window dressing. It looks good to have a bunch of guns on a table (I know those pictured are from a bust and I applaud that wholeheartedly) but guns owners are not the problem - criminals with guns are. In fact the criminals LOVE this policy because it takes guns away from those lawful resident owners and makes their job of commiting crimes easier. It's true nobody is forcing a lawful registered gun owner to give in their gun, but in the end criminals can get a gun just as easily anywhere else. Why not offer $100 for cars? This way less cars are on the street and the car-jacking rate will go down too!

Posted by: TSN | December 7, 2006 11:44 PM

Community policing? Come on Cisco, what are you doing? Another gimmick. Just enough to take 95 guns off the street, are you kidding me?

Go back to the days of Chief Warring. They managed to do it. Shifting the focus and taking the guns off the street and the thugs holding them. Oh, I forgot, under Chief Ortiz and Mayor John DeStefano, the police department numbers of officers dropped and were not replaced.

Now raise the property taxes and then we have a big announcement from Chief Ortiz and DeStefano that they are going to hire more officers, suggesting that we, the public, should be grateful with something that we deserved long before now. And how long will it take to get these officers on the street with out training wheels???

Speaking of community policing, what will happen when the New Haven Police Academy can not handle the number of recruits? I suppose nobody has been thinking about the effects of mixing graduates from the state police academy with those who have graduated from the community policing focused program of the New Haven Police Academy?

Posted by: Ned | December 9, 2006 9:20 AM

From: Youth Violence: A Report of the Surgeon General: "the Gun buyback programs, a particularly EXPENSIVE strategy, have consistently been shown to have NO EFFECT on gun violence, including firearm-related homicide and injury."

http://mentalhealth.samhsa.gov/youthviolence/surgeongeneral/SG_Site/chapter5/sec5.asp

Posted by: KAM B | December 9, 2006 11:55 AM

Police recruits? What recruits!? The NHPD had a police recruit drive to hire 2 classes of 40 officers and they have like 120 valid applicants. This is ridiculous! Where are these people coming from, the Whalley Ave Prison system. The need to refocus their recruitment drives and get good appliacants to be NHPD officers, then you wont need a gun buy back program because you'll have able people who are capable of being good aggressive officers.

Posted by: Paradude54 | December 9, 2006 4:44 PM

What a waste of money. Reading this story has made me PROUD to NOT live in Connecticut. If only we could talk these misguided miscreants that seem to flock to the New England states into forming a nation of their own through succession this country as a whole would be MUCH better off.