There have been reports that Navy veteran John Cinque has been receiving threats because of his stance on the issue of Connecticut’s gun registration law. Apparently those reports are due to a misreading of a piece by the New Haven Register in which Cinque said, “There have been threats made — that I found out about today.” Freedom Outpost reached out to John Cinque, who spoke with us this morning and confirmed that the threats he was speaking about were towards the Branford Police, not towards him.

“The cops are having the threats…. they are scared,” he told us.

According to Cinque, Officer Joseph Peterson, who made comments in interaction on Facebook while off duty that he would “give my left nut to bang down your door and come for your gun…” has been placed on 24-hour guard due to threats on his life. This information came directly from Police Chief Kevin Halloran.

Mr. Cinque told us that he had a two and a half hour “sit down” with the Branford Police Department on Tuesday. He said that the Branford PD was supposed to come out with an apology for Peterson’s comments and wanted Cinque’s endorsement of the apology in an attempt to cool things down.

“The first words out of the police chief’s mouth… were ‘How can you help us with this?'” Cinque said. “They’re getting killed over there. They said they can do nothing but deal with this.”

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Cinque’s endorsement would not be automatic. “There are some things here that need to be addressed before I endorse the apology,” he said. “Don’t make the apology to me. The apology has to be to the residents of Branford and to the citizens of the State of Connecticut.”

“If we are looking to tamp this thing down…none of us need violence here,” Cinque continued.

“We’re winning this thing; we’re winning this thing hard here,” Cinque said, referring to the efforts to ignore unconstitutional and unlawful legislation that seeks to have citizens register their semi-automatic rifles and high capacity magazines.

“That’s the last thing we need,” he added, referring to violence.

“We’re going to try to throw water on this thing and get it calmed down …” Cinque said. “The whole premise of where Joe’s coming from has to be addressed, and now it has been … Now it’s time to calm it down …

“The problem now is, we have a forest fire burning, and we’ve got to see how we can go about extinguishing it,” he said.

John Cinque stressed that threats and violence on both sides is not what will win the day. “None of us wants violence anyway.”

Cinque also pointed out that no ex post facto laws or retainers can be instituted, and that doesn’t apply to just guns.

For his part, Cinque said there would have to be several things in the apology before he would endorse it. One of those things would be remedial training in the United States Constitution for Officer Joseph Peterson and the other officers of the Branford Police Department. Another would be a stand that the Police Department would not be involved in the enforcement of the gun registration law.

Branford Police as scheduled to contact John Cinque today. At the time of the writing of this article, they have not done so. The purpose of the contact, according to Mr. Cinque, is to get his approval of their apology, which they will seek to have broadcast via television with Mr. Cinque lending his approval to the apology.

While Mr. Cinque has been thrown into a whirlwind of news publicity in the past week, he is confident that cooler heads will prevail and wants to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. That solution is to have constitutionally educated law enforcement officers, who also understand the history of gun registration / confiscation, and a citizenry who elect lawmakers who understand the same.

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Mr. Cinque has said that he will update us on any progress of the Branford Police apology. If, and when, it becomes public, we will provide our readers with that information.

This is a lesson in how to deal with this issue in your own town, county and state. The people must be vocal and they must not back down. Threats of violence are not the way to go about things. Citizens are to remain vigilant, and the only proper use of force would be defensively. I applaud the efforts of patriots like John Cinque and others who have drawn a line in the sand, and unlike certain occupants of the White House, don’t blink when the line is crossed.

Tim Brown is the Editor of Freedom Outpost.