Fast forward some years later, I think only the rural areas CT had firearms for sale. But there was one delinquent in my highschool who converted a non firing starter pistol, into a firing one. Fairly easy to do too if you're even slightly mechanically inclined. Not safe, but doable. I knew some fellow students who carried a knife, or an improvised weapon to school. Some were wannabe thugs in training. Some were bullied, and felt they could not turn to anyone else for help. Or felt the threat of 'snitches who bitches gets stitches'.
At one of the local cafes, while I wasn't there but a few of my friends was, witnessed someone getting shot, another time a machete attack. I didn't feel any safer when the cops raided an Airsoft toy gun store at pacific mall. None of the toy guns in the store were actually used in any crime, but it got shut down just in case someone want to use a real looking toy gun in a robbery. A robbery that hasn't happened yet. I didn't know TPS had precog technology but ok.
Respectfully and honestly, I do not feel safer with less\no firearms being sold at nearby CT, or made more restrictive, or law abiding citizens being made to prove just how more law abiding they are.
I do feel less safe with some people I knew who were going down the wrong path and fast, yet seemed to have a revolving door pass through the criminal system. Whatever the reason was, some of them unfortunately became calcified criminals. Whatever point in time that an ounce of prevention\help\hug a potential thug could've worked, had sadly and tragically passed by.