Gun Sense Vermont cofounder Ann Braden conceded Tuesday that her group is unlikely to achieve its goal this year of requiring near-universal background checks for gun buyers. But she expressed hope that two other provisions in a controversial gun-control bill may still move forward before the end of the legislative session.
“We have a very long view on this,” Braden said. “Two years ago, there wasn’t any way any gun provision would be debated. This is a long-term campaign to really change the conversation, so we can pass legislation to keep guns out of the wrong hands.”
As written, the bill faces steep odds in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Its chairman, Sen. Dick Sears (D-Bennington), opposes requiring those buying guns in private sales to undergo federal background checks. But Sears said Tuesday his committee may still vote on the bill’s other two components after legislators’ Town Meeting Day break next week.
Those provisions would:
- Make it illegal for convicted felons to posses guns under state law, as they are under federal law.
- Require the state to report to a federal database the names of those deemed by a court to be dangerous and mentally ill.
“I don’t know what we’ll do,” Sears said.
Last weekend, the Valley News’ Rob Wolfe reported that the bill’s chief sponsor, Senate President Pro Tem John Campbell (D-Windsor), had likewise conceded defeat on mandatory background checks, but still believed some version of the bill could pass.
“I always knew that the first part was going to be a little difficult — the background checks — but [in] these other two areas, I think there’s sufficient evidence to show how useful it can be and how this can and will save lives,” he told the newspaper.
Gun-rights activists are opposing all provisions of the bill, S.31, according to Vermont Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs vice president Evan Hughes. He maintains Vermont is one of the safest states in the nation and has no need for changes to its gun laws. Hughes and others see such changes as a violation of their constitutional right to bear arms.
Sears is setting out to show that some gun-safety provisions make sense. His committee will focus on a single question during a hearing Wednesday: “Should Vermont have a law that would prohibit a person convicted of a violent crime and/or certain drug trafficking offenses from possessing a firearm?”
Law enforcement officers who previously declared opposition to the background checks portion of the bill will testify in support of a state law prohibiting felons from possessing guns, Sears said.
He said many of his constituents who oppose expanding background checks support the mental health and felon provisions. As for requiring Vermonters who are conducting private gun sales to go to a gun dealer for a background check, Sears said his constituents have been more consistently opposed.
Sears said he was convinced that expanding background checks to private sales was a mistake after he visited a local gun shop. Its owner told the senator that if two parties asked him to conduct a background check for transfer of a hunting rifle, he would charge the buyer $45, which seemed impractical, Sears recounted.
“There’s a reason Congress left it the way it is,” he said.
Braden said she hasn’t given up on expanding background checks eventually.
“This isn’t our last year,” she said.
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Go home Gunnonsensevt! Take your flatland carpetbagger friends with you. In Vermont, we do things a little differently than you. We don’t need outsiders coming here and trying to make our way of life more in line with what you left behind. It seems you may have brought with you what you left behind. The distrust and paranoia you had back home have no place here. We’ve been doing it right for well over 200 years.
As Braden said this ism’ their last year! To further interpret it means we get to listen to lies and flatlander sob stories for the foreseeable future!
No new gun laws!
Go home Ann Braden. You’re drunk.
“This is a long-term campaign to really change the conversation, so we can pass legislation to keep guns out of the wrong hands.” This is the problem, these people will never stop. If we give them an inch, they’ll take a mile. They’re socialists who hate the fact that citizens have constitutionally protected freedoms including the right to own firearms to defend themselves and their families. They’ll be back next year and the year after that with ever increasing restrictions on your liberties until you have none. There is no end. These people are the worst kind of evil. And I’m still wondering how she plans on having her so-called “conversation” when the dialog only goes one way.
*sigh* So, there’s already a law, on the federal level, that says that felons cannot possess guns….. and you want to pass a *second* law that says the same thing, but on the state level. Why will two laws that do the same thing achieve results that one law did not alone? If it’s an issue of your state failing to enforce the federal law, why don’t you change things so that your state enforces federal law? Does that not seem a more reasonable approach?
Further, what mandate does the *court* have to decide *medical* matters? If it were that the state must report people who a medical panel deemed dangerous or mentally ill, that would be more reasonable.
There are many problems with S31 going well beyond the universal background check provision causing I and most gun owners to continue to oppose it in its entirety. The definition of a Firearm in S31 does Not match the Federal Statutes. S31 redefines firearms to include antique weapons specifically excluded by Federal law. The provision in S31 that add names of the adjudicated Mentally Ill the National Gun Registry is the most dangerous. We see horror stories of Federal and Vermont’s registries. Elderly and even babies denied the ability to board an airplane because their name is similar to a name on the “No Fly List”. Vermont’s is unable to maintain an accurate “Sex Offender Registry. People who should on it are left of and people who should not be on it on listed. The State is shooting for a goal of 95% accuracy. Once on these lists, it is virtually impossible to get off even if there is no legal justification for being on it. What about the issue of privacy? Will employers, Insurance companies and News Media have access to such a public list? Will your name appear in the Burlington Free Press or 7 Days. The American Psychiatric Association reports that one in two Americans suffer from some form of mental illness and one out of five Americans have a diagnosable Mental Disorder. This is the same groups that use to claim “Homosexuality” is a mental disease and people with sexual organ damage could be “Trained” through gender reassignment. Forgive me if I and most Vermonters do not trust a Michael Bloomberg funded, “Gun nonsense Vermont” bought and paid for legislature to do the right thing. NO TO S31 in its entirety.
What part of shall not be infringed don’t they understand?
I don’t understand. I had a criminal background check to become a teacher. I paid for Drivers’ Ed and pay my car registration every year. I purchase a fishing license to fish with my son in the summer. If I get pregnant, in many states, I need to drive 300 miles, pay for a hotel, pay for child care, lose wages, get an invasive exam in my vagina, and wait 72 hours to get a legal medical procedure.
I don’t understand what is so prohibitive about a background check that costs $45. Especially when the consequences stand to be so dire. I don’t understand why this would even be a noteworthy inconvenience, let alone infringe upon anyone’s rights. Seriously, if you’re not responsible enough to scrape together $45 to handle a deadly firearm, maybe…
then pass the provisions pertaining to the mental health and felon aspects of the law because sadly, many out of state people are taking advantage of our laws to gain access to guns they shouldn’t have. I don’t like being used and having my state look like a bunch of gun freaks because we don’t have the protections in place against those who exploit our state system.
We who favor this bill know that a large majority of ordinary Vermonters, gun owners or not, favor universal background checks. And that is why, when a few more legislators are elected who have the courage to value human life at more than $45, then the arguments of the paranoid will be discredited, and this legislation will pass. And when it does, the sky will not fall, Vermonters who want guns will still have them, and we will all understand this issue like so many others in our history– like child labor laws, the abolition of slavery, women’s voting rights, and the 40-hour work week– common sense foundations of a just and humane society that we wonder how we ever lived without. There is no right to yell “fire” in a crowded theater. There is no right to any extremist position in a democratic society, and the age of America’s irresponsible gun culture is drawing to a close.
To Jana Beagley – The fact your freedom of choice is are already so restricted by bad laws makes you ask gun owners why they shouldn’t submit to the same tyranny? Please keep you slave like mindset to yourself so Americans can be what they should be: Free and proud self governing individuals.
To Brian: what it tells me is that gun advocates enjoy ludicrous hegemony and blind fanaticism in our society, a fact which you seem to acknowledge but not find deplorable. Which is sad, really.
Definition….
inalienable right :
noun
a right according to natural law, a right that cannot be taken away, denied, or transferred
any questions?
Dick Sears (D) hales from Mass., John Campbell (D) comes from N.Y.: as reported by The Seven Days, Mr. Campbell has ” In the last two years, he’s quietly increased his office’s staffing and more than doubled his payroll.” He also increased his aide workers salary from $20,000 to over $100,000…. Dem’s who hale from other states come up to try and change Vt. and make a pretty fat paycheck.
To greenman48:
We are a constitutional republic. Learn your history.
If you want gun control, move to a state/city that its working so well for… NY, California, Massachusetts, Maryland, Chicago, Detroit, DC, etc…
Oh right… It doesn’t work for those places. Maybe other states should model VT.
I always find it amazing that people assume Vermonters want this. No native Vermonters i have spoken to want this. It is the paid, Bloomberg flatlanders that want this. Ann Braden won’t disclose her funding or her long term goals- that you should tell you something. I am native Vermonter, a female and I have several firearms that if you think I am going to give up, well you can as they say, “go pound salt.”. There is no way in hell I am going to be convinced that my state has a gun problem when not one single statistic exists to that. But Vermont does have one current problem- out of state a$$holes
if they want to pass a back ground check they should first pass a back ground check on persons running for office. then we have less losers in office. you anti-Americans get a life. Vermont is the safest state in the union. If you don’t like it move out.
To Don Nelson: You are quoting from the Declaration of Independence, which is a political document, not a legal document. So typical of the gun crowd not to know the difference.
To Michael Pisano:
The platitude that you’re repeating is a distinction without a difference. It is also particularly inapt in Vermont, which has more elements of purely democratic institutions than the other states you referenced.
We in Vermont are looking for gun violence prevention, not gun control.
To Donna Lauzon:
Here’s the “one single statistic” you’re looking for: Vermont ranks near the top of the list for gun suicides among US states, and the pattern in relation to background checks is clear: States that perform only a federal background check with loopholes, like Vermont, rank near the top of the suicide list. States that perform state- or local-level background checks rank near the bottom, with about half as many suicides as Vermont.
Check the data here:
http://www.ajpmonline.org/article/S0749-37…
No one is trying to take away your guns; we’re trying to keep our young people and seniors alive. You can keep your guns and let other people live too. Background checks work for everyone.
I live in Albany, N.Y. People of VT do not give an inch on this proposal. In NY we have had an assault weapons ban in place since 1994. That wasn’t good enough. Now we cannot own a gun with a detachable magazine that has a muzzle break or flash suppressor, it can’t have a collapsible stock or even a thumbhole stock (NY State safe act). Our rifles also cannot have a pistol grip on them at all, if the magazine detaches. Cuomo put in place a 7 round magazine limit, that has since been deemed unconstitutional by a federal judge, but the NY state legislature hasn’t gotten around to changing it yet.
Anyone who says they “don’t understand what the issue with background checks is”, let me help you out. It’s this simple, I’ve known my closest friends for over 20 years, I know their habits and behaviors better than the govt (state or federal) ever will. I would never sell or lend a firearm to someone that I didn’t trust, or trusted but knew they probably aren’t appropriately safe with my property for one reason or another. There isn’t a law that will make us all safer, it’s called PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. If you are waiting for the govt to pass a law that makes violent people non violent, you will likely play the role of victim all your life. Take an interest in your well being and don’t force your decisions and or stances on others. Use polite conversation to explain your views while avoiding arguments that don’t serve a positive purpose. In 2011 VT had 5 murders I believe (I wrote a paper on it a year ago so my numbers may be slightly off) with 3 of them committed with a firearm. VT doesn’t have state gun laws, they only ban suppressors (not sure why, that seems silly). VT has access to countless types of firearms and for some reason Vermonters aren’t going around killing each other. I’m not sure why, maybe it’s something in the water because everything i’ve read, of course, would lead me to believe that more guns = more murder. How do you guys do it? You have shown that talking point to be quite false.
“We have a very long view on this,” Braden said.
OK Mrs Braden, where in your ‘long view’ did you get the idea it was acceptable to tell other people what private property they could or could not own?
Jana Beagley: Imagine if all the invasive and inconvenient things you did for childbirth had had no impact on whether or not you or your child would survive the experience. Would you not think that it was a gross violation of your privacy and rights, if you were forced to do it by a government that had no idea how to make childbirth easier and safer?
Background checks don’t work. I could go into detail about how they consistently fail, but I’ll sum it up with this: possession and misuse are not the same thing, and the laws requiring background checks are written as if they are.
Stop the lying, Brady..we ALL know the true agenda here.
“We’re going to have to take one step at a time, and the first step is necessarily — given the political realities — going to be very modest. . . . [W]e’ll have to start working again to strengthen that law, and then again to strengthen the next law, and maybe again and again. Right now, though, we’d be satisfied not with half a loaf but with a slice. Our ultimate goal — total control of handguns in the United States — is going to take time. . . . The first problem is to slow down the number of handguns being produced and sold in this country. The second problem is to get handguns registered. The final problem is to make possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition-except for the military, police, licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs, and licensed gun collectors-totally illegal.”
Richard Harris, A Reporter at Large: Handguns, New Yorker, July 26, 1976, at 53, 58 (quoting Pete Shields, founder of Handgun Control, Inc. (aka the Brady Campaign)
Dear Jana Beagley you are the perfect picture of someone who does not know what they are talking about. there is a background check in Vt.when you buy a gun the dealer will call the feds. no felony you get the gun, felony you do not. everyone but you anti’s won’t admit that if a criminal want a gun they’ll get a gun with no background check. so lets infringe on the lawful people of Vt.
Has nobody studied history? Probably not as the history texts have been made so boring. But if you do, you will find that Republics have a short lifespan. Few of them last more than about 250 years. The founding fathers knew this. (The Texas Textbook committee didn’t censor text books back then) and they put the second amendment into the bill of Rights with that bit of information in mind.
Has anyone noticed that the Supreme court, in a 5 to 4 decision a couple of years ago decided that Corporations can put as much money as they want into political races? Well so can I, so I guess that makes the poor corporations equal to me. (And if you believe that, I’ve got a bridge at Crown Point I’ll sell you cheap.) Is it conceivable that a group of corporations with interlocking directorates might be able to buy enough congressmen and even a president, who would pass laws totally favorable to corporations? Is it possible that such a government might become destructive of the rights of Life, Liberty and pursuit of Happiness? Would the people have any rights under such circumstances?
We’d still have the right to vote, but both parties might well be bought out so it wouldn’t make any difference. The forms would stay the same. Caesar Augustus didn’t change the forms of the old Republic. He was just Consul-for-life, and was a bit more equal than anybody else.
The right to bear arms is a continual threat to would-be usurpers of power. If the people are disarmed, they can be subjugated more easily by would-be oligarchs.
I got curious a couple of years ago about these mass shootings. They have been increasing in frequency over the past 30 years. If you go online and type in “Mass killings/drugs” you will find that there seems to be a correlation between the prescribing of anti-depressant drugs and these shootings. Of course there are learned sounding counter arguments. We saw that with tobacco, we are seeing it with climate change. And we will see it with these drugs too. But there is a correlation and nobody is investigating it. Maybe instead of controlling guns, we should just ban Ridilin. There is a rare side effect in about one in every thousand, of delusions, aggression and violence with this entire class of anti-depressant drugs.
Another thing to check out. Go online and type in “Police/duty to protect individuals.” You will find case after case, including a decision by the U.S. Supreme court, that says that police have no duty to protect individuals. Police protect society. The last attempted home invasion we had here in our house in Bolton VT, in 2007, it took -state police an hour to get here after three calls! Meanwhile the four out-of-state punks were drivin off by a loud dog and an M-1898 Mauser that was fully loaded and operational. But my son said that a 30 round magazine would have felt a lot better than the five-round mag of the Mauser.
For the benefit of the anti-gun crowd, a Mauser is a rifle designed for shooting mice. It is 8 mm. That means that it is eight millimeters long. Oh, and that bridge in Crown point….I’ll sell it for $10.
Just want to quote this.
“For the benefit of the anti-gun crowd, a Mauser is a rifle designed for shooting mice. It is 8 mm. That means that it is eight millimeters long.”
No, its not for mice. Its most commonly used for big game. And no, the bullet is not 8mm long, it’s 8mm WIDE.
Other than those things, I agree with you.
Since when did ANY legislature keep guns out of the wrong hands. All gun opponents want to do is make themselves feel good without actually looking at the problem. Safe gun ownership makes for a safe community.