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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Im saddened by the seemingly derisive tone used in referring to 2nd amendment supporters. I understand that when elected you took an oath to uphold the constitution. Not just the parts you like today based on your feelz. Which rights might you decide to go after next?
s.55 is a badly written piece of legislation that will not solve the problem of young men acting out in a violent fashion. We as a society must find the root cause of the violence. If we do not solve this puzzle, no law prohibiting any device or tool will serve to eliminate future tragedy.
This bill if passed, will do nothing to restrict criminals such as the felon who recently opened fire on the streets of Burlington. This Felon was prohibited under current law from having a firearm. Criminals do not abide by firearms laws. I would say the first step might be taking these young men off of prescription medications that can cause erratic behavior.
Vermont has the most lax gun laws in the Nation yet one of the safest States
Don’t waste our time with the Anti Gun Agenda
Has anyone who supports S.55 actually read the bill?
There is a section of the bill that gives State Law Enforcement the duty to enforce Federal Law.
Page 2 of 9 (3) Unlawful per se means firearms the possession of which is unlawful under any circumstances under State or federal law.
This is bad legislation and will not stop the violence. This will only protect the criminal who attacks a law abiding citizen. NO to S.55!!!
This bill is a solution looking for a problem!
Why don’t you spend your time, and my tax $$ on something that will directly benefit Vermonters, like providing cell coverage to the entire state not just Burlington and Montpelier. When will you politicians realize that if some psycho wants to kill a bunch of people, they will always find a way! It’s as if you completely refuse to acknowledge the fact that guns can be obtained illegally, and that murder is already against the law. These ridiculous new laws would only affect us law-abiding citizens. All you would accomplish with this Mr Lalonde, is to limit my ability to protect myself and family, and why would you ever want do that?
I wonder if Rep. Brumsted expressed any concern about the recent change in policy approved by her husband (UVM MC CEO Dr. John Brumsted) and the rest of the UVM Medical Center Board which allows unborn children’s lives to be ended in elective, late-term abortions, including painful dismemberment abortions?
Vermont has a success story of stopping a potential shooter WITHOUT any new guns laws. There was never a need for any of these new bills and we have a current story which proves that fact. No one serving currently is interested in being positive and seeing what works, there is only a negative push toward punitive measures targeting the wrong people.
All of this hysteria from the current administration on down is not about keeping children safe or having had some epiphany. It’s about capitalizing on an opportunity and creating a new voter base. It’s been sickening to watch.
I wish Lalonde would withdraw everything and then leave this state. Any other politician who agrees with him should follow. I hate seeing our tax money be put to use on laws that won’t work and punish good people.
The Parkland shooting and Columbine happened with 10 round magazines. Look how fast they can be swapped out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksZqzPWm7VQ There are millions of “high capacity” magazines out there. They can be 3d printed. They aren’t tracked. If you can’t buy them in VT you could just buy them in another state or buy them online. We have drugs that ship throughout the US every day. They aren’t going to be able to scan every package for plastic/metal box and a spring. Trying to limit them will make zero difference. If a bad person that shouldn’t have access to a gun is able to get a gun; they will certainly be able to get whatever size magazine they want. And good people should be able to defend themselves against bad people using the same size magazine that bad people will have.
Trying to push this law is just going to punish law abiding citizens. It also sounds like it would make it illegal people who own them to resell. So now they sell their gun and are stuck with property (magazines) they can’t try to recoup their investment on unless they want to be a criminal?
I just wish these “concerned” Legislators would afford our children the same level of security as they afford themselves. There are plenty of security guards and police in the Statehouse and Flip Flop Phil has an armed bodyguard but increasing school security is too expensive!?!?! Harden our schools now! The largest mass student murder in the history of Vermont was done with a car on I89 by a guy who already had his guns confiscated!
I hope at election time everyone remembers thes peoples names and removes them from their postions. Using kids and fear propaganda to try and push an agenda that most Vermonters do not support, is sickening. Vermont has no gun crime issues. Reform is not needed here.