Slightly more than 65 percent of firearm-related charges in Connecticut’s court system between 2013 and 2022 were either dismissed or nolled, according to a report by the Office of Legislative Research (OLR) and analysis by Connecticut Inside Investigator.

Of the 24,078 firearms charges filed for 58 different offenses during that 9-year period, 13,126 were nolled – meaning the prosecutor declined to prosecute the charge – and another 2,632 were dismissed.

While the numbers may appear shocking for a state that has focused much of its attention on gun violence and enacting more gun laws, the OLR says that in most instances the charges were nolled or dismissed as part of a plea deal in which lesser charges are dropped in exchange for a guilty plea to more serious offenses.

The OLR report cautions that the numbers should not be viewed as individual cases because often multiple charges are levied against the same individual. The numbers are merely showing the disposition of charges for each individual year.

Certainly, according to the numbers, some gun charges were pursued more vigorously. There were 8,171 guilty convictions between 2013 and 2022, with most of those charges stemming from criminal possession of a firearm, ammunition or electronic defense weapon (1,941), carrying a pistol or revolver without a permit (1,778), and first-degree robbery with a firearm threat (1,170). Of those three charges, only first-degree robbery with a firearm threat saw more charges result in a guilty verdict than were dismissed or nolled.

Charges related to illegal sales and transfers of firearms were also largely dismissed or nolled. Of the 804 charges for illegal transfer of a firearm, 644 were dismissed or nolled and 159 resulted in a guilty verdict. Similarly, of the 73 firearms trafficking charges levied during that time period, 48 were dismissed or nolled.

Connecticut’s assault weapons offenses were also mostly dismissed or nolled, according to the data. Charges stemming from illegal possession, transfer or transport of an assault weapon comprised 480 charges filed in court; 350 were dismissed or nolled.

Again, as indicated in the report, the numbers cannot be attributed to single cases and do not include possible substitute charges prosecutors may add, and while the figures are broken out by year, court cases often take years in order to reach a conclusion.

“In addition, some charges may be dismissed when an offender satisfactorily completes a diversionary program,” the report notes. “For example, an offender who is allowed to participate in accelerated rehabilitation and successfully completes the program can have his or her charges dismissed.”

Connecticut has some of the most stringent gun laws in the country and this year the General Assembly and Gov. Ned Lamont proposed a slew of new gun laws following a spike in murders after the COVID-19 pandemic – an effect that was national in scope.

Among Connecticut’s recently approved new gun laws is a ban on open carry, a limit on purchasing more than three handguns in a month to prevent straw purchases, and an update to Connecticut’s “ghost gun” laws. In total, 15 new or updated firearm laws were signed by Lamont, who said the bill took “smart and strategic steps to strengthen laws in Connecticut.”

“Over the years, Connecticut has shown time and again that we can improve public safety by implementing reasonable gun violence prevention laws while also respecting the rights of Americans to own guns for their own protection and sportsmanship,” Lamont said. “This bill that I’ve signed continues that fair, commonsense balance.”

Passage of those laws brought President Joe Biden to Connecticut, where he was the keynote speaker at the National Safer Communities Summit at the University of Hartford, but the new laws have also invited legal challenges from gun rights groups. We the Patriots USA, an Idaho-based group that is run by two Connecticut citizens, filed a lawsuit seeking to block the ban on open carry the day Lamont signed the legislation

Rep. Craig Fishbein, R-Wallingford, ranking member on the Judiciary Committee who voted against the legislation, said the timing of OLR’s report was “ironic” and that the state should focus on enforcing the laws already on the books.

“I find it most ironic that mere days after President Biden and his fellow anti-gunners held a rally heralding the passage of more laws that attack law-abiding gun owners, that Connecticut discloses that many of the existing laws are not being prosecuted,” Fishbein said. “Clearly their initiative is more about politics, and less about preventing the gun crimes plaguing our cities.”

The OLR report included a second set of tables and numbers that included all weapons charges, not necessarily firearms. Those figures were not included in CII’s analysis. 

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