The Connecticut Citizens Defense League’s Holly Sullivan joins today’s Bearing Arms Cam & Co to talk about the surprising changes made to Gov. Ned Lamont’s sweeping gun control proposals when the state’s Senate Judiciary Committee marked up the bill.

As Sullivan explains, the bill was largely gutted by the Democratic majority (along with their Republican colleagues) thanks to the amazing grassroots activism on the part of gun owners in the state. About 2,000 people submitted written testimony in opposition to the measures, while hundreds of gun owners and 2A activists signed up to give their own in-person testimony to the committee.

Sullivan says that not only were lawmakers shocked by the large number of folks in opposition, but by who turned out to testify. Urban residents, suburban moms, and rural gun owners alike showed up to express their displeasure towards Lamont’s proposals, almost all of which are aimed at residents who want to lawfully exercise their Second Amendment rights.

One specific proposal from the governor that received a lot of pushback from gun owners in cities like Hartford and Bridgeport was a total prohibition on lawful carrying on public transportation; a measure that would obviously place a disproportionate burden on those reliant on taking a bus to and from work as well as lower-income residents who can’t afford private transportation of their own.

Now, have these Democrats really had a change of heart, or was this just the result of election-year jitters? Sullivan says that this November’s elections definitely played a role in the skittishness of some Democrats, but those lawmakers likely wouldn’t be nearly as reluctant to approve Lamont’s legislation if gun owners had simply stayed home and remained silent after the governor laid out his latest anti-2A agenda. In other words, the grassroots really did make a difference.

Of course, there’s still the potential for anti-gun lawmakers to restore some or all of Lamont’s bad ideas once the bill is heard on the Senate floor, and there are also a couple of additional gun control bills floating around the legislature. Still, what happened in the Senate Judiciary Committee is both surprising and noteworthy, and I know that CCDL and its members are going to keep up the pressure throughout the rest of the session.

Be sure to check out the entire conversation with Holly Sullivan in the video window above, and you can keep up with the latest activity from CCDL online as well.