Updated on June 11, 2019.
Gov. Phil Scott on Monday vetoed a 24-hour waiting period for handgun sales in Vermont and signed a bill protecting a woman’s right to an abortion.
The legislature passed S.169 to create a cooling-off period to reduce acts of impulsive gun violence, especially suicides. But Scott, citing a number of other gun restrictions he has signed, said he didn’t think the new bill hit the mark.
“With these measures in place, we must now prioritize strategies that address the underlying causes of violence and suicide,” Scott said in a statement. “I do not believe S.169 addresses these areas.”
Scott had until midnight Monday to either sign the bill, veto it or allow it to become law without his signature.
After the move, the family of Andrew Black released a statement blasting the decision. The 23-year-old Essex man shot and killed himself in December, hours after buying a gun.
“While we know this bill would not save everyone, by disrupting access to the most lethal method, it would have saved some,” Black’s parents, Rob and Alyssa Black, wrote in a statement. “This bill would have saved our son, it could have saved yours.”
The pair had lobbied legislators hard for the change and said they were “deeply disappointed” that Scott “went political.”
Legislators initially proposed a 48-hour waiting period to include all guns, but cut that period in half and removed rifles from the bill as a compromise.
California, Illinois and Rhode Island are among the states that have established waiting periods in law.
Senate President Pro Tempore Tim Ashe (D/P-Chittenden) released a statement lamenting the governor’s decision to block a “common sense step forward” on gun safety.
“Governor Scott’s veto is massively disappointing,” Ashe wrote.
Ashe pointed out that, while the governor proposed instead to tackle mental health, childhood poverty and addiction issues, those strategies “scarcely registered” in his recent budgets.
House Speaker Mitzi Johnson (D-South Hero) issued a similar statement, noting that, unlike other forms of attempted suicide, 90 percent of attempts involving guns are successful.
“It is clear that the Governor’s disengaged approach to policy is not working for Vermont or for Vermonters,” Johnson wrote. “I hope to see him engage with lawmakers as legislation is developed next session.”
Because of the hurried way the general assembly adjourned this legislative session, lawmakers will not have a summer session to try to override any gubernatorial vetoes. Their next opportunity to do so will be when the legislature reconvenes in January.
The deadline for Scott to sign or veto another closely watched bill, H.57, was coming up Tuesday.
“Like many Vermonters, I have consistently supported a woman’s right to choose, which is why today I signed H.57 into law,” Scott wrote. “This legislation affirms what is already allowable in Vermont — protecting reproductive rights and ensuring those decisions remain between a woman and her health care provider.”
Disclosure: Tim Ashe is the domestic partner of Seven Days publisher and coeditor Paula Routly. Find our conflict-of-interest policy here: sevendaysvt.com/disclosure.
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The militia: all able bodied men.
Well regulated (1790’s): functional, in working order.
That mass group of people, being necessary to a free state, the right of *the people* to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
English isn’t this hard.
Facts and data? There’s no data that a 24 hour wait does anything. The data given by the proponents was over a week long time line. Data shows things like our suicide rate is not abnormally higher than other countries, despite our access to firearms. http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries…
You’ll notice countries with almost no guns ahead of the us. The anecdotal evidence is there, and is serious. It doesn’t come from Fox news, and saying that in any demeaning way only hurts your argument as it turns it into a sloppy ad hominem. The FBI stats show that crime has gone down as firearm ownership has gone up.
The suicide rate has followed global trends.
Shameful move by the governor. The legislation was supported by facts and data, not anecdotes, dystopian fears and links citing Fox News.
It looks like the first four words of the Second Amendment are again conveniently shrugged off: “A well regulated militia”
Penelope — “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” is from the Declaration of Independence. The Second Amendment is in the Bill of Rights (the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution of the United States.) Our own Vermont Constitution also enumerates the right to bear arms in Article 16. These Constitutions don’t GRANT rights, but instead LIMIT the government’s power to restrict those rights.
Your assertions that the GOP is criminally negligent and the NRA is Russia-backed are not based on fact.
The FACT that the Blacks were sheperded around by Mayor Bloomberg’s paid lawyer should tell you
all you need to know about who financed this latest attack on the rights of law-abiding gun owners.
While I respect the Blacks, and the terrible loss of Andrew, their claim that he would still be alive today
if this law had been in place is (sadly) conjecture.
Governor Scott’s veto was the correct choice.
While I understand the intent behind a waiting period, the governor is correct in saying this is a mental health issue, and not a gun issue. The focus should be on increasing access to mental health providers, not new gun laws, and for the record Im not a gun owner.
As far as legal abortion is concerned, this is a federal issue, not a state issue. If Roe V Wade is overturned and abortion is illegal on a federal level, physicians and abortion providers in Vermont are going to think long and hard about continuing the practice, and about being proseced.
As a physician, I believe that a 24 hr waiting period might reduce the number of suicides, namely the ones that are impulsive (probably not the majority); however, I can’t support a law that prevents people from defending themselves. Had they put in there an exception for individuals that have taken out a restraining order against someone, I would have been more supportive. Simply the act of taking out a restraining order against a violent person can be the trigger, and while not everyone will want to protect themselves with a firearmthey should have that right. This recent case from California is a case in point and not the only one I have seen over the years.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/california-man-kills-woman-self-day-after-she-filed-restraining-order-against-him-police
Why would law-abiding citizens have a problem with waiting 24 measly hours to get a gun if it’s not for a crime of passion? I know this is Vermont but if it’s not for nefarious reasons, what’s the big deal of waiting 24 hours? You still get your gun!
In that 9th is part of how we have constitutional abortion. Although that’s one of those positive rights.
It “allows” people to own weapons to have them protect their natural right to life. The second, along with most of the bor, recognized natural rights. That’s why the ninth and tenth are there. Enumerated powers of the government.
Negative vs positive rights is something adults should know.
The right to life is natural. That doesn’t mean someone can’t kill you. Since you have a right to your life, you have to be able to keep it. The second is the defensive part.
The second amendment doesn’t allow you to kill people.
Shouldn’t there be a 24 hour waiting period before a woman aborts the living being within her womb instead?
I’m sad to hear this news, I’m a progressive who voted for and admired Gov Scott for having the courage to stand up to his criminally negligent GOP and the Russian-backed NRA.
America gives more rights to the ability to kill and own weapons than it does about allowing its citizens life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I wish people cared as much about all the other amendments as they do about the second.