A group of young Vermonters and gun control activists gathered at the Vermont Statehouse Tuesday morning to call on lawmakers to pass several proposed gun-control bills.
The demonstration came in reaction to a school shooting in Florida last week and an incident in Fair Haven in which authorities stopped a would-be school shooter before any violence took place.
“Fix this before my kid is texting me from under a desk,” read a sign held by a demonstrator standing in a light rain on the Statehouse steps.
The demonstration was organized by GunSense Vermont, but the presence of students from the Vermont Commons School brought the message home. The students called on lawmakers to pass new gun laws before more shootings take place.
In a slow, quiet procession, the students wove through the halls of the Statehouse bearing signs that read “protect kids not guns” and “right to own a gun or surviving school.”
Demonstrators said they were hoping to make gun control an unavoidable topic in the Statehouse. Three gun control bills are currently in the Senate Judiciary Committee. One would mandate background checks for all gun sales. Another would allow police to confiscate weapons when they make an arrest for domestic violence. A third bill would create a court process allowing police to confiscate guns from those ruled to be an “extreme risk.”
The universal background check bill has been stuck in the committee since last year and hasn’t moved because three of the panel’s five members oppose it. (A 2015 attempt to mandate background checks was also thwarted by a 3-2 vote in the same committee.) The current bill’s lead sponsor, Sen. Phil Baruth (D/P-Chittenden), said last week that the Senate should be ashamed for doing “jack shit” about gun violence.
Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger attended the Tuesday morning rally in Montpelier and said student involvement at the event gave him hope that the years-long political deadlock around gun control would come to an end.
“It is very hopeful to be standing with so many of you this morning,” Weinberger said to a crowd in front of the Statehouse, “and particularly to be standing with our kids and children who have been so eloquent on this issue. That, I hope, is what will finally change this terrible dynamic and lead to action.”
Weinberger joined other advocates in calling for statewide, mandatory universal background checks, as he has since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in December 2012.
“The rest of the world simply does not tolerate this kind of massacre of its children,” Weinberger said. “The United States and the state of Vermont should not either.”
But if lawmakers don’t pass any statewide measures, Weinberger said it’s unacceptable to block local gun control. Burlington voters in 2014 approved a measure banning guns in bars, requiring residents to lock them up when not in use and allowing cops to confiscate them from those accused of domestic violence. The legislature has so far refused to approve the necessary changes to the city’s charter, blocking enactment of the proposed policies.
“If Montpelier can’t or won’t get the job done, at the very least this Statehouse should allow cities and towns that want to move forward on their own to protect our children, our domestic violence victims and our police officers,” the mayor said. “We should be allowed to take responsibility and do that as our own communities.”
Weinberger says a statewide policy would make more sense, but he’s already hedging his bets.
“I have begun conversations about whether we could bring [the charter changes] back this year,” he said in an interview with Seven Days Monday. “I do plan to spend some time on this.”
John Walters contributed reporting.
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Thommy have fun living down under in Australia we will miss you. Look out for the sharks and dingos. Here in America we have this awesome thing called the 2nd amendment.
“Maybe next time you want to rant about something because you are mad because I am right “
FYI- you have to postulate some position or at least formulate an opinion before you can proclaim you are “right”. You have just stated that you are correct because you yourself says so. Without even telling us what it is you believe you are “correct” about. That’s not how it works.
I’d would like you to know @snowycreek that I attend the school and before you say a single thing you should do some research about anything. The school is an amazing environment with smart students and teachers and a great community. Maybe next time you want to rant about something because you are mad because I am right and you are in the wrong to go to another page that doesn’t talk about the school and rant about someone other than kids that just don’t want to be shot in an educational environment.
You are wrong- we would not be imprisoning children- thats just silly
we would be providing a safe secure building where they could focus on learning
and no one would have to lose any of their freedoms in the process
win win
Are we just all glancing over the fact that Australia had a buyback program for guns and they haven’t had any gun related mass murders since? There’s also been a decrease in the over all homicide rate in Australia, with many statisticians claiming that the buyback program was beneficial.
Claiming that gun laws are ineffective, while true to a degree, fails to acknowledge that there are benefits to them. Anyone can drive drunk, but our systems in place have largely been a beneficial deterent to this risky behavior. Because it still happens, should we dismantle those systems? With the pro-gun lobby’s logic we should, because their logic hinges on absolutes.
You truly think schools should be guarded like prisons? What a tremendously sad perspective. Locking a school down creates an environment where it is impossible to learn. Guns and the people who use them to murder are the problem – don’t punish children by imprisoning them.
the lessons of the Bath school disastor prove true today- You can only protect a school by taking physical control of it away from anyone who wishes to enter who does not belong there. Had the Bath school been a secure facility- the disaster never would have occured. Ditto for pretty much every attack since. Heck- in Virginia Tech the shooter took advantage of the lack of security by creating his own- chaining everyone inside the building.
If if you have no buisiness being on school property you should be denied access to it. I hate to say it but if we really want to keep schools safe we are going to have to take a prison like mentality when it comes to security. Starting with a secure fence to ensure that their is restricted access limiting anyone entry beyond the manned gates that would provide access.
If its good enough for the gated communities of the rich- then why is it not good enough for our schools?
Why do we protect prisons in a far safer fashion than we do our Schools?
I
Whether or not a bunch of dudes wrote there are god given rights doesn’t indicate that there actually are. (Hint: there aren’t.)
The Bath School disaster is tragic and interesting – I didn’t know about it. Surely, though, you understand that rather than looking at century old incidents, we should be considering how best to stop modern ones. But the rest of what you wrote is exactly what I’m saying. The laws will not stop all criminals, but neither do any laws. People have the opportunity to act in whatever way they want. They can sell guns illegally, buy guns illegally, use guns illegally, etc., and this will not change with harsher restrictions or penalties. But whatever mental calculus they do to weigh the pros and cons will change because the cons go way up, and actually accessing a weapon becomes more difficult in the first place.
You are wrong – if that name isn’t an indictment of intelligent discourse these days I don’t know what is.
“There are no “god given rights””?
Yet another completely, totally uneducated opinion. Have you ever read the Declaration of Independence, which preceded all else? This countries first legal document.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”
Please, get a second grade education before commenting on such important matters.