The day after a 19-year-old gunman killed 17 students at a Florida high school, Gov. Phil Scott defended Vermont’s permissive gun laws and rejected calls for new restrictions.
“We’re fortunate we’re one of the safest states in the country, and I believe our gun laws are balanced,” the first-term Republican said Thursday afternoon. “They balance public safety with our rights.”
Rather than limiting access to firearms, Scott said the state should focus on providing more training and drills in schools so that staff and students can prepare for active-shooter situations.
“We should do more [training], and certainly we should be vigilant at this point in time,” Scott said, citing concerns about “copycat” shootings in the wake of the Florida massacre.
Sen. Phil Baruth (D/P-Chittenden), an outspoken gun control proponent, saw it differently. He said the latest incident should “increase the shame” on the Vermont Senate, which he criticized for failing to address gun violence.
“We are doing jack shit about a problem that’s every bit as pressing nationwide as the opioid epidemic,” Baruth said Thursday. “And the reason I say that is not to denigrate what’s happening with the opioid epidemic — people are dying — but the mass-shooting epidemic that we’re experiencing is decaying American life at its foundation.”
Five years ago, after a gunman killed 26 people at Connecticut’s Sandy Hook Elementary School, Baruth introduced legislation banning assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition. Under pressure from fellow senators, he quickly withdrew the bill.
In 2015, the Senate considered legislation that would require anyone purchasing a gun in Vermont to undergo a federal criminal background check. Current law mandates such checks only when the seller is a federally licensed firearm dealer.
That bill failed on a 3-2 vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee, with Sens. Tim Ashe (D/P-Chittenden) and Jeanette White (D-Windham) supporting it and Sens. Dick Sears (D-Bennington), Alice Nitka (D-Windsor) and Joe Benning (R-Caledonia) opposing it.
Baruth made a new push for universal background checks last year. But because the panel still consists of the same five members, he argued, “one senator in that committee is making the decision for the entire Senate” as to whether his bill reaches the floor for debate.
“What I’ve been trying to say since the beginning of this session is that that’s not allowable anymore,” Baruth said. “We’ve reached a point where we have to demand that the Senate function as the deliberative body it’s supposed to be.”
Attorney General T.J. Donovan said Thursday that he supports Baruth’s proposal.
“I understand the culture of sportsmen and women. I fully support it,” the Democratic AG said. “They are responsible gun owners, but when somebody … is a threat to our public safety, they have forfeited their right to own and to possess a firearm, in my opinion.”
House Speaker Mitzi Johnson (D-South Hero) responded to the Florida shooting by condemning inaction by Congress.
“It was yet another awful and sobering event,” she said. “At some point Congress decided that it was okay for children to die.”
Johnson noted that the Vermont House passed a bill last year that would allow police to confiscate guns when they make an arrest for domestic violence. That legislation is also stuck in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Sears, who chairs the panel, has refused to advance the House bill, citing constitutional concerns.
Sears said Thursday that Florida’s school shooting would not change his approach to gun legislation. He introduced a bill this year that would create a court process allowing police to take guns away from those deemed to be an “extreme risk” to themselves or others. He said that such a policy might prevent situations similar to this week’s mass shooting, “assuming that somebody came forward and said to police, you know, this person is dangerous right now and has shown these pictures on Facebook, has indicated threats.”
Gov. Scott said Thursday that he had not spoken with Sears about the bill, but he indicated that he would keep an open mind if it passed the legislature.
“We’ll make sure that we have all voices heard on that,” the governor said. “I agree with the premise that someone that has a mental illness should be prevented from obtaining a firearm.”
But Scott said his mind was made up about Baruth’s universal background check bill. He noted that early reports suggest the Florida shooter passed a background check in order to obtain the weapon he used in the shooting.
“So that doesn’t always prevent these types of situations, unfortunately,” Scott said.
Disclosure: Tim Ashe is the domestic partner of Seven Days publisher and coeditor Paula Routly. Find our conflict-of-interest policy here: sevendaysvt.com/disclosure.
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So what has Taylor Dobbs, Paul Heintz and Seven Days left out in their epic quest for National Enquirer status?
Aside from anything even slightly resembling actual journalism Other news outfits, instead of assaulting their governors hardly minutes later than the bodies hit the ground, trying to insure no good tragedy is wasted, have actually reported on the person responsible for this tragedy.
The FBI admits it completely failed to do anything, anything at all, about direct reports that Nikolas Cruz (not his gun) was going to do something horrible. They had this information over a month prior and did NOTHING.
Nikolas Cruz (Not his gun) had an apparent history of mental illness and violent, sadistic behavior.
Nikolas Cruz (Not his gun) was supposedly distraught after the medical/hospital industry apparently killed his otherwise healthy mother just a few months ago.
Nikolas Cruz (not his gun) has very apparent vaccine/brain & nervous system damage and WAS on pharmaceuticals with god knows what side effects.
Deputies were called to the home of Nikolas Cruz (not his gun) 39 times over seven years for all manor of violent and sadistic behavior problems. Yet another ball dropped. Probably no revenue in it for them. There are speeding tickets to right and vehicles to be illegally searched to make sure there is no plant matter in them.
So, Taylor/Paul/Seven Days No opinions on this at all? Doesnt suit the gun banning/rights infringing agenda? Just couldnt care less?
James, you seem emotionally attached to weapons used by terrorists. When you have calmed down and are thinking rationally, let’s look over your ideas on keeping weapons used by terrorists readily available. I’m sure they are good.
A_Trout Funny how you don’t mention even one of the other tragedies where the instrument of mass death wasn’t a gun. I guess those lives don’t mean a thing to you? Where are your emotions for them? No soapbox to stand on or drum of righteousness to beat on their behalf I guess.
James, this is non-emotional response to the Colombine, Sandy Hook, Orlando, Santa Barbara, and Las Vegas massacres. We were told it was too soon at the time.
Emotional decision making seldom leads to good outcomes. The “we must do something” crowd have no realistic solution and refuse to accept that evil deeds are impossible to stop with legislation.
The endless diatribe from the people so simple minded that they can’t pull anything else out of a tragedy like this except “we gotta get the guns” is tiring beyond belief but also an outstanding example of the dire need to always remain vigilant against this kind of blatant ignorance.
As we’ve moved on through the decades there have been more and more restrictions on our right to defend ourselves and the horrific acts like this have only increased in parallel. But we are supposed to buy the story that even more restrictions will somehow change that.
It makes you wonder if people can really be so ridiculously naive as to believe with all honesty that further, unlawful restrictions on other peoples rights will make any difference at all in these situations. It makes it even harder to wonder what ulterior motive these people and the groups they belong to have. Someone commits mass murder with fire, it’s the lunatic that did it. Someone commits mass murder with a rental truck, it’s the lunatic that did it, Stabbings- same, Pressure cookers- same, fertilizer bombs-same. But when the instrument is a gun, the person that did it ceases to even exist. It’s all about the instrument. Not the cause, the motive, the potential influence of horrific pharmaceutical drugs that derange peoples minds, societies that just won’t leave other people alone to live their lives until they drive them to the edge… No, the black metal thing did it.
People just can’t be this blatantly stupid on such a massive scale, so there must be an ulterior motive.
As John Cassidy noted in The New Yorker, “America’s failure to protect its children is a national disgrace.” And as David Boggs, a teenage survivor of this week’s massacre pointed out “We’re children. You’re the adults.” Our political leaders have barrels of blood on their hands. They cower in cowardly fashion blaming mental illness when the blame is all their own. They adhere mindlessly to a perverted reading of the second amendment rather than protecting public safety responsibly like every other country in which slaughter like this does not happen over and over. And pretending that Vermont is a bubble is as reckless as doing nothing once again.
Dear Governor Scott: We are one of the safest places in the nation until we aren’t. And then, it’s too late.
Senator Sears: Does one of the female members of your family have to be murdered with a gun before you understand you are putting all women in Vermont at risk by stopped the vote on confiscation of weapons from those involved in domestic violence? If you wait until then, it will be too late.
And to all of you: instead of having security guards in the state house, why don’t you just have more drills?
He is a part of the problem, he is mentally ill all politicians should undergo mental health counseling in order to run and stay in office!
JimM, you keep hugging that AK. Your love for that inanimate killing weapon makes it easier for others to use it to kill.