Four representatives made emotional pleas to colleagues on the House Judiciary Committee Monday morning as they testified in favor of gun safety proposals, including magazine capacity limits, waiting periods for gun sales and mandatory safe storage of firearms.
Despite the testimony and his own support for some kind of safe storage policy in Vermont, Rep. Martin LaLonde (D-South Burlington) withdrew a proposal he’d made last week that would require guns to be locked up when the owner isn’t in direct control of the weapon.
“It’s a little too broad,” LaLonde told the House committee Monday, noting that he wants to keep guns away from children and teens who shouldn’t have them but couldn’t find a policy that wouldn’t unduly limit home defense.
LaLonde’s proposal to limit magazine capacity to 10 rounds remains in the bill. Among the proposal’s supporters is Windsor County State’s Attorney David Cahill, who wrote the committee a letter encouraging its passage. The proposal would prohibit selling, buying or otherwise transferring the ownership of a high-capacity magazine. Such magazines owned before the passage of the bill would be legal.
The House Judiciary Committee is expected to vote on the magazine capacity limit and the underlying bill, S.55, this week.
Four representatives not serving on the Judiciary Committee thanked chair Maxine Grad (D-Moretown) and the rest of the committee for their work on the bill, which would raise Vermont’s purchasing age for guns to 21 and make background checks mandatory for all gun sales.
All four — Rep. Lori Houghton (D-Essex Junction), Rep. Sarah Copeland Hanzas (D-Bradford), Rep. Amy Sheldon (D-Middlebury) and Rep. Jessica Brumsted (D-Shelburne) — encouraged the House Judiciary committee to include the additional gun-safety provisions to the bill.
Brumsted paused multiple times to wipe tears and collect herself as she described her experience raising children in Vermont. She said that after the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado, she spent two years advocating and fundraising with the local parent-teacher organization in Shelburne to start a policy of locking school doors during the day.
“We have a national problem that we can no longer ignore,” Brumsted said, adding that her sixth-grade son has grown up in the age of mass shootings. Through tears, she talked about an idea he came home with one day recently.
“He wondered if, for a school project, he could build a bulletproof closet for his classmates to sit in” during the “next clear-the-halls” active-shooter drill, she said.
Brumsted described the moment as heart wrenching: “Your child comes forward with these fears, and you can’t protect them.”
Sheldon recalled visiting her neighbor, whom she identified only as Raymond, after she was elected to represent Middlebury. She said she didn’t expect to find much common ground with him — a National Rifle Association supporter and gun owner — on the topic of firearm legislation. By the time she left, Sheldon said, they’d agreed on every single point.
“I want to remind the committee that responsible gun owners in Vermont also support what you’re doing,” Sheldon said.
Houghton said her community knows well what gun violence at schools can look like, recalling the August 2006 incident in which a gunman killed one teacher and injured another at Essex Elementary School. Last year, she said, threats of violence prompted another lockdown. Houghton, her voice quivering with emotion, said she could not imagine what it was like inside the high school that day as students and teachers waited to find out if they were safe.
“What I did imagine,” she said, pausing to collect herself, “was my sweet eight-year-old boy locked in a room” with 19 other kids and one teacher. Houghton encouraged her colleagues to press on with gun safety policies, even as doing so would bring criticism from Second Amendment advocates.
Copeland Hanzas thanked the committee for its work and recognized the discomfort of being “under the microscope” as a result of their efforts to advance gun control policy. She said the controversy surrounding gun legislation is based in flawed logic.
“I really think we ought to err on the side of human life … as opposed to pretending the Second Amendment is more important than human life,” she said.
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VT is one of the safest states in the US.
Violent crime is at one of the lowest levels ever in the US. Homicide is down. Gun deaths, and more importantly gun murder, is one of the lowest compared to gun ownership across the world. Gun homicide per 100k is not the highest in the world. It’s not even the highest compared to first world countries.
Benjamin Franklin once said: “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” In this case its giving up liberty for the false sense of safety. Hold dear all constitutional RIGHTS. They support and defend one another.
Exploiting children is the most disgusting form of propaganda a politician can use.
If they could pretend that they shouldn’t infringe on our right to gun ownership and focus on other solutions, they could resolve this problem.
For starters, secure our schools properly.
I find it disturbing that the legislation considers magazines above 10rd capacity a “high capacity” magazine. Most STANDARD magazines are over 10rds…
I have had enough of these so called politicians trying to take away constitutional rights. We really need to get out and spread the word and make sure these folks who dont respect the oath they took are replaced by someone who understands that the constitution is our rights and its not something they can just take away or play with. We do not need anymore worthless gun laws. Try using the laws that we already have on the books and make the penalties for criminals who break these laws a little bit harsher. We are far to easy on criminals especially here in Vermont and we shouldnt be.
The tide has turned and legislators are going to be held to their oaths of office! We will not tolerate people who work for outside interests and create fear in safe communities in order to deprive good people of their constitutional rights.
LaLonde must not be reelected
Baruth must go—
The List is very long but we are finding your replacements
You are no longer public servants.
Oh, and it’s NOT “gun safety proposals.” It’s “gun owner control.”
Please stop all this propaganda speak.
They use the freshly dead beautiful children of these killings as props to push an agenda. Disgusting.
Magazine bans are completely unenforceable. Put it this way, if NY’s S.A.F.E. Act only enjoyed a 4% compliance rate and the draconian Connecticut gun legislation enacted immediately after Sandy Hook only enjoyed an under 15% compliance rate, can you imagine how Vermont is going to react, compliance-wise?
Some questions:
1. How will the state enforce this, given that there are no serial numbers added to magazines? It gets more and more obvious this bill is being slapped together with bias and without any kind of subject knowledge.
By the way, the Florida shooter used 10-round magazines.
2. How will the state pay for the enforcement of this stupidity? Will law enforcement even go along with this crap? The Chittenden County Fraternal Order of Police already announced, in a formal letter, that they are against all the new rash of gun owner control legislation coming out lately ( http://truenorthreports.com/chittenden-cou… ).
3. They call these “high capacity” magazines. Unfortunately for them, there is no such thing. That’s a label given these objects for propaganda purposes. Yes, they are referring to magazines that contain over 10 rounds and are roughly banana shaped. But, these are actually standard size magazines. Yes, that matters.
4. I’m assuming they’re going after magazines based on rifles that personally scare these legislators. Unfortunately, the over-ten round capacity magazine ban affects more than these scary looking rifles. Many other rifles, as well. And a huge percentage of semi-automatic pistols utilize a larger than 10 round capacity. Are we now talking about a pistol ban of some kind?
Is this the same Ms. Brumsted who had the objection to a surgical center cause it would cause competition with her husbands UVM strategy?