Burlington residents two years ago approved three gun-control measures, including a ban on firearms in city bars. But last year, state lawmakers dismissed the proposed change to the city’s charter needed to make the ban take effect.
Now, there’s a push to try again.
“It’s certainly by far and away the will of the Burlington voters,” said Rep. Mary Sullivan (D-Burlington), who is among those championing three bills in the legislature that contain the items Burlington voters overwhelmingly approved.
Sullivan and other Burlington House members have won a daylong hearing next Thursday before the House Government Operations Committee. Mayor Miro Weinberger is lobbying for support of the measures, citing renewed need after a fatal shooting outside the Zen Lounge in downtown Burlington in December. The Burlington City Council this month passed a resolution urging the Legislature to reconsider the issue.
“I’m going to push hard,” Weinberger said, while visiting the Statehouse last week. He has the backing of Vermont’s seven other city mayors. Though the Vermont Mayor’s Coalition has not taken a stance on Burlington’s charter changes themselves, the group made a statement in support of the city’s right to do what it believes is necessary to protect public safety.
Sullivan said support for the changes is growing in the House. Rep. Joanna Cole (D-Burlington) said the number of co-sponsors has grown from 12 to more than 25.
Despite the renewed push, the changes to Burlington’s charter still have a steep hill to climb.
Rep. Donna Sweaney (D-Windsor), chair of the committee, said she’s made no promises about the bills’ prospects and remains personally opposed. “I have real issues with doing this kind of legislation town by town,” she said. “I think this is a statewide issue.”
Last year, Sweaney’s committee dismissed the charter changes as constitutionally questionable and never sent them to the House floor for a vote.
House Speaker Shap Smith (D-Morristown) indicated the charter changes are likely to fail if they make it to the full House, which has long been reluctant to tackle gun control. “My advice to the people who want to move the issue forward is to bring a bill to the floor and watch it die is not the way to do that,” Smith said. “It depends on whether you want to play a short game or a long game.”
Vermont law contains a Sportsmen’s Bill of Rights that prohibits municipalities from regulating firearms. Smith, a lawyer, said he continues to see that as a barrier to Burlington’s charter changes.
Weinberger disagrees, arguing that Burlington’s desire to protect the public’s safety has nothing to do with sportsmen.
The Vermont Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs is poised to fight the charter changes as it did last year. “This legislation is not just about guns in Burlington,” the group said on its website this week. “It’s about Vermont municipalities killing our Vermont Sportsmen’s Bill of Rights.”
But Burlington will get a hearing on the issue. Sweaney said next Thursday’s committee meeting will be almost like a public hearing, with the panel listening to those who sign up to testify.
The city has rewritten last year’s charter change bills, so they are not identical to the bills that failed last year, though they seek to accomplish the same goals. In addition to banning guns in bars, Burlington voters are asking to allow police to confiscate guns in domestic violence cases and require residents to lock up guns when not in use.
Among the issues Sweaney’s committee will consider, she said, is whether a municipal charter change can legally have a second try in the legislature without a new vote by the community. Sweaney, who’s been in the legislature since 1997, said she doesn’t think that’s happened before.
Got something to say?
Send a letter to the editor and we'll publish your feedback in print!
Bunch of mindless liberals in Burlington, Burlington like Vermont use to be a great place to live not anymore.. Thanks to nutcase Sanders when he was mayor now Weinberger..Make rules and laws without thinking of the people.. “it’s my way or the highway” mentality ..Anyone who keeps listening to these liberals, Vermonters, true Vermonters will lose their rights to own guns..
Burlington voters passed these charter changes by a large majority. These changes are about gun safety within Burlington for our citizens. We should not have to have a citizens who want to eat out bill of rights nor a victim of domestic violence bill of rights nor a child’s bill of rights not to have loaded guns lying around.
It is a Vermont citizen’s right to have these gun safety protections.
Sportsmen are hunting deer and turkeys and moose in the woods not people in restaurants.
Having a special state statute for a special interest group, sportsmen in this instance, is unconstitutional.
Now can every special interest group get a state law prohibiting towns from making laws restricting their interests? We need to take this to court.
One shooting in 2015 and here we go again with the ‘make me safe’ parade. Not to mention the shooting was probably with an illegally obtained firearm.
Protection of everybody’s Rights under the US and Vermont Constitutions is NOT being a special interest group.
ONE person was shot in a bar in Burlington in 2015, and both parties were narcotics dealers with violent histories, do you really believe that they would obey a gun law? It would only affect those law abiding citizens, making them easy victims for predators like those. See what happens as far as muggings, etc. once the thugs know that the law abiding are all unarmed.
Vermont is so very safe Because her Freedom of self-defense is a deterrent.
Well then maybe we need to have a law in Burlington that they need to check all tires on cars for the right tire pressure, and depth of tread, and exhaust system before you can go in the City! they are so stupid!!
It doesn’t matter if a majority of people in Burlington want to violate people’s rights. By such logic, segregation would still be alright in places where it was the will of the majority. Like it or not, the right to keep and bear arms is just that, a right. It is instrumental to the right of self defense. It’s also egalitarian in that having a gun and proper training with it can help to neutralize the advantage that dangerous criminals would otherwise have over the rest of us; whether it be size, strength, ability, or being armed regardless of any laws people pass to create an illusion of safety.