HARTFORD, Connecticut - August 4, 2008 - A new report to the Connecticut state legislature shows that police have used the state's unique gun seizure law to confiscate more than 1,700 firearms from citizens, based solely on suspicion that the gun owners might harm themselves or others.

The state's law permits police to seek a warrant for seizing a citizen's guns based on suspicion of the gun owner's intentions, before any act of violence or lawbreaking is actually committed.

The law was first proposed in 1998, following a mass shooting at the Connecticut Lottery Corporation that left five dead, including the gunman. Since the law went into effect October 1, 1999, according to new Office of Legislative Research report, police have made more than 200 documented requests for warrants to seize firearms from citizens, and only two of the requests have been denied.

The law has remained hotly debated since its passage, as some point to possible murders and suicides it may have prevented, and others worry that police would abuse the law.

"It certainly has not been abused. It may be underutilized," Ron Pinciaro, co-executive director of Connecticut Against Gun Violence, told the Waterbury Republican American. "The bottom line from our perspective is, it may very well have saved lives."

Attorney Ralph D. Sherman, who has represented several of the gun owners whose firearms were confiscated under the law, disagrees.

"In every case I was involved in I thought it was an abuse," he told the newspaper. "The overriding concern is anybody can report anybody with or without substantiation, and I don't think that is the American way."

Joe Graborz, executive director of the Connecticut Civil Liberties Union, an affiliate of the ACLU, told WND the law "continues to invest unusual and far-reaching powers in police authority that does not belong there" by requiring "police to act as psychologists in trying to predict and interpret behavior."

"What is the standard of proof on this?" he asked. "The way this law is written, it can and will be easily abused by police."

Ed. Note:  By what logic do the police (our public servants) get to decide whether or not we (their lawful masters) can own firearms with which to defend our lives, families, and country?