Two committees of the Vermont Senate summoned a pair of Harvard Business School professors to the Statehouse on Thursday in an attempt to breathe life into vetoed gun legislation.
The bill in question, S.169, would mandate a 24-hour waiting period before most handgun purchases. It cleared the legislature last May but was vetoed in June by Republican Gov. Phil Scott.
Since then, legislative leaders have struggled to decide whether to compromise with the governor or attempt to override his veto, which would require a two-thirds vote in both chambers. While the measure met that threshold last year in the Senate, it fell short in the House on a vote of 82 to 58.
On Thursday, senators sought to convince their colleagues — and perhaps the governor — that the bill could, in fact, save lives. They invited professors Deepak Malhotra and Michael Luca to present their research showing that waiting periods cut the homicide rate by 17 percent and the suicide rate by 7 to 11 percent.
“If this policy passes, if the objective is to reduce gun deaths, that would be something you could very much expect,” Malhotra told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Health and Welfare Committee.
The professors reached their conclusions after analyzing the outcomes of various state-based waiting periods over a 45-year span and studying the impact of a national waiting period in effect from 1994 to 1998. They determined that, throughout the country, waiting periods could prevent 900 homicides and 950 suicides a year.
Such measures, Malhotra conceded, were “not a magic wand,” noting that 90 percent of suicides would still take place. “But every one of those deaths has an impact on the family, the community, the entire state,” he said.
Less clear from their research, the professors acknowledged, was whether the length of a waiting period made it more or less effective. They were not able to study the efficacy of a 24-hour waiting period because no state has enacted such a limited measure.
Scott cited that paucity of applicable data last year in explaining his veto to reporters. “There are no comparisons to a 24-hour waiting period on handguns alone,” he said at a press conference. “There are no-apples-to-apples comparisons.”
The governor hasn’t, apparently, changed his mind since. According to spokesperson Rebecca Kelley, Scott “stands by this decision” and believes that “the best way to build upon the work we’ve done to reduce gun violence and suicide is to focus on the root causes.” She cited proposals from his budget address earlier this week that would increase funding for suicide prevention and early intervention programs.
“If the Senate disagrees, they have the ability to override the governor’s veto,” Kelley said.
Whether the Senate will attempt to do so remained unclear after the professors delivered their testimony. During a brief discussion about what to do next, members of the Judiciary Committee complained that the administration had not made clear what the governor would support and what he wouldn’t.
“It’s hard to make that decision without actually hearing from them,” said Sen. Dick Sears (D-Bennington), who chairs the committee.
One option, Sears suggested, would be to increase the duration of the waiting period — something the senator has previously opposed. Another would be to strip out that portion of the bill and pass a more limited measure. Its other provisions include closing the so-called “Charleston loophole” by requiring background checks to be completed prior to a sale and allowing medical professionals to request “extreme risk protection orders” against those they deem a risk to public safety.
That’s the preferred approach of Bill Moore, a firearms policy analyst for the Vermont Traditions Coalition, which supports gun rights. “There’s consensus on all of the other elements,” he said. “So we would strongly urge both [chambers] to go ahead and just take out the waiting period — have that debate on another platform.”
Senate President Pro Tempore Tim Ashe (D/P-Chittenden) said he believes the Senate “should do anything we can to get a waiting period passed into law to save lives.” But, he added, “We’re also realistic. There are three partners in this, and hopefully the research helps people make a better decision.”
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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Donald Davis:
1) “You are saying 13,100,000 should be penalized because of what at most was 2,470 people did?” First, the 2470 people did nothing: they got shot and died.
Second, yes, I’m saying that asking 13+million people (many of whom already own one or more firearms) to delay a firearms purchase for a day or 2 is a reasonable tradeoff to save the lives of 2470 innocent people.
2) Right. We’ll wait.
3) I didn’t ignore the Bill of Rights or the 2nd Amendment. Indeed, I noted that the amendment begins by referring to “a well-regulated militia.” (I can’t resist adding that prior to the Heller decision, it was a commonplace of Constitutional interpretation that the amendment’s rights pertained ONLY to such a militia, NOT to individuals. But the Heller decision changed that, and it’s now the law of the land).
I then noted, as did Heller that ““we agree with petitioners’ interpretive assumption that “militia” means the same thing in Article I and the Second Amendment.” (p.23) This is basic to any textual interpretation: the contrary notion that the text might be using the same word in 2 very different ways leads to interpretative chaos.
That’s WHY I turned to Article I, which provides a much clearer notion of what the Constitution means by “militia.”
Specifically, in this instance, Article I makes it clear what it does NOT mean. The theory that the framers wanted to provide citizens with firearms to revolt from a Constitutionally elected government is clearly spurious.
While the government might have some ancillary interest in reducing the rate of suicide among the people, attempting to or believing it is within their authority to, remove from the hands of the people, every instrument with which one might, maybe, someday, under extremely extenuating circumstances, become the one in 500 thousand to take their life, is not only futile, it is the very definition of the Nanny State the constitutions prohibit. Not by any definition the reason the People of Vermont instituted a state government.
This is by no means a compelling public interest and plainly, not the state legislatures business, much less when they seek to burden the whole of the population for the alleged benefit of a few, who frankly, have the right to self determination to end their lives if they wish and when the same results could easily be achieved in other ways.
I have to wonder how often it is the ceaseless attempts at despotic tyranny of the legislature over the people & their private affairs that pushes people to end their lives, by whatever method or implement.
Frankly, if the legislature really gave a rats ass about preventing suicide, there are far bigger targets that would have a far greater effect and are even within their purview. i.e. Big Pharmas mind deranging poisons.
JohnGreenberg
1) The article is basing its findings on a national numbers. If you want to use the full years numbers find
13,100,000 guns purchased in 2018
2,470 homicides may have been prevented by a waiting period
You are saying 13,100,000 should be penalized because of what at most was 2,470 people did?
Only talking about Vermont. Ok that is 1.8 per 100,000 equals 11 and the closest you can get to 17% is 1.86 so 1 or 2.
So you would make every person in the state of Vermont have a waiting period because there is a chance you may prevent 1 homicide or if you round up 2?
2) Well I guess we have to wait for a ruling from the United States Supreme Court.
3) You are talking about the Constitution and what powers were given to legislators. Did you forget about the amendments to the constitution? You know the Bill of Rights which states the rights of the people?
the first ten amendments to the US Constitution, ratified in 1791 and guaranteeing such rights as the freedoms of speech, assembly, and worship.
Donald Davis:
1) I’m not saying anything. The study discussed in the article and to which I linked is saying that if a waiting period applied to the entire country (which again, is NOT what we’re discussing here) AND IF there were no such waiting period in effect anywhere in the country (which is not the case either), then if there were 14,542 firearms homicides in 2018, that number would have been reduced by about 17% or about 2470 homicides if a national waiting period had been imposed that year.
But just to be perfectly clear, the law we’re discussing would apply ONLY to Vermont, so the number of firearms homicides is FAR lower than the number you cite. In addition, the reduction in the whole US would be lower than what I stated, because some localities already have waiting periods.
2) The passage we’re discussing in the Heller decision does NOT say that the listed limitations are the only ones that would pass Constitutional scrutiny. It says that the 2nd amendment right is NOT unlimited, and then provides some examples of limitations which it considers permissible. Since waiting periods are not on the list, the question is whether the Court would have permitted them or not. I haven’t researched the issue, but I don’t believe that Court has ruled on that question, and in any case, there are now new members.
In short, the Heller decision did NOT say that laws about waiting periods would be unconstitutional and no previous decision had ever done so either.
3) My comments are not based on a “translation.” I quoted the text of Article I, Section 8, which you can read yourself. It lays out the rules for militias, including surpress[ing] insurrections. Historians have nothing to do with it.
JohnGreenberg I guess all I can do it go by the numbers I am talking about, not what article portrays
2018 numbers was as close as I could find from CDC on homicide rates.
estimated firearms purchases in the United States for 2018 is 13,100,000
From here I am going to break it down to a per week number
13,100,000 divided by 52 equals 251,923
Firearm homicides for 2018 was 14,542
divided by 52 is 280
17% of that is 48
so
327,000,000 people in the United States in 2018
251.923 people that would have to wait a week to purchase their weapons
280 Homicides in that week
48 is 17% of all the homicides committed in 2018 that may or may not have been stopped by a waiting period..
So you are saying 251,923 people, yes quarter of a million people should be affected by what up to 48 people did? (That is if each new gun purchase in that week resulted in that person only killing one person)
2) I was stating that the limitations were listed in D.C. vs Heller. You are saying it gives the Government a green light to make whatever limitation they want. “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” was put into the second amendment for a reason. I believe that reason is because the local government is trying to take a “God given Freedom” That the local government has no right to infringe upon.
3) I guess for every historian you can show me that has your translation I could find one that does not. So I will stop the back and forth on the third topic.
“BTV reader” suggests that my comment that somehow raises the trolley problem, which establishes a choice between allowing a trolley to kill 5 people, or allowing it to kill one. But the choice I presented is between allowing one or more people to die, on the one hand, and inconveniencing some buyers on the other.
In responding to Senator Benning’s reply to my comment, I acknowledged that it might be necessary to make a provision in a waiting period law for what I will call “emergency self defense.” In doing so, I am acknowledging the POSSIBILITY that enacting a waiting period COULD endanger someone who needed a weapon for self-defense during the waiting period and would have no alternative access to one. If that possibility were to actually materialize, we would be facing the trolley problem.
But establishing that possibility first requires acknowledgement that the only way someone would have to defend themselves during a waiting period would be a firearm, a proposition which is far from self-evident.
Then, and worse, even assuming that a firearm were the only way to defend oneself, purchasing a firearm is not the only way to obtain one. To cite an obvious counterexample, someone who already owns a firearm would not need to buy another for self-defense during the waiting period.
The same logic would apply to Rogers cell phone ban for teenagers. What about those who would be killed (in an accident or in an attack) because they couldn’t call for help? In the cell phone case, it’s not even possible to determine WHICH side of the trolley lever would cause more deaths.
Finally, it’s critical to acknowledge an essential difference. There is EVIDENCE supporting the claim that waiting periods save lives, but none for the self-defense claim. Facts matter.
Donald Davis:
1) I wish I understood what you’re talking about here, but I don’t. You appear to be asking HOW the study referred to in the article determined that there would be 17% fewer deaths from homicide, for example.
The simplest answer to your question is that the authors did a statistical analysis based on comparing periods and places that DID have waiting periods to similar periods and places that did not. Here’s how they put it: “We construct a panel of every change to waiting period laws in the United States between 1970 and 2014…. We combine these changes with annual data on firearm-related deaths from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention…. Overall, 44 states (including the District of Columbia) have had a waiting period for at least some time between 1970 and 2014. … Essentially, we compare changes in firearm-related deaths within states that adopted waiting periods with changes in firearm-related deaths in other states.” http://www.pnas.org/content/114/46/12162
2) You continue either to miss the point, or evade it: the issue we’re discussing is waiting periods, not magazines or weapon types.
3) The British government was not elected by American colonists, which eventually led them to consider it tyrannical (“Taxation without representation” etc.).
Governments under the US constitution ARE elected by American citizens and are therefore not thought of as tyrannical, which is WHY the Constitution allows for militias to “suppress insurrections.” The language of the text is perfectly clear, however much you try to evade it.
” Forestgimp.” I too miss VT Digger debates. I think Digger management made a serious error in deciding to prohibit them, and told them so quite clearly.
Governors propose legislation all the time. It’s part of the job, whence the saying “the governor proposes and the legislature disposes” which “has been cited in print since at least 1892.” tinyurl.com/tt4rtvp
My larger point is this. If the governor or his supporters are really serious about cutting government spending, they’ll introduce specific bills to accomplish that. Failure to do so places the onus on someone else. In the absence of such bills, talking about cutting spending is really just convenient rhetoric which serves no purpose other than to lambast those of us who seek real solutions to real problems and realize we’re going to have to pay for them.
No one LIKES to pay taxes; that’s WHY they’re mandatory. But realistic citizens and politicians realize that government is the best way to develop and maintain common infrastructure (roads, schools, courts, police) and that governments cannot rely on voluntary contributions for funding.
Similarly, everyone is in favor of spending less, until it’s THEIR program. Then there’s hell to pay.
I wish I believed that there were vast pots of government waste just waiting to be discovered, but it would be nice to believe in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy too.
That means that any proposed spending cuts are going to gore someone’s ox, and those who are pushing them ought to tell us whose.
Senator Benning, Thanks for taking the time to respond.
You were right to base your argument on the Vermont Constitution, rather than the 2nd Amendment. My understanding of court precedents tells me that the claim that waiting periods violate the 2nd amendment would not be upheld. With no Vermont precedent on the question, my guess is that Vermont courts, considering Article 16 would adopt reasoning similar to that I cited previously from the Heller decision: no right is unlimited.
Much depends on how the law is written. A Vermont law which fails to make any allowance for self-defense during a waiting period might very well fail court scrutiny. But since such specific cases are rare, my guess is that courts would uphold a waiting period law which allowed for emergency self-defense. The only sure way to find out is to pass the law, have it challenged, and see what the courts do with it.
Neither of your 2 supposed analogies holds much water. Courts regularly determine that bans on speech inciting to violence, for one example, does NOT violate the 1st amendment.
Roe rehearses millennia of philosophical and theological debate over the beginning of life to then conclude that the state has a legitimate interest in fetal life only after viability. Anti-choice activists disagree. We live in a pluralistic society where such decisions belong to individuals NOT politicians. A government decision to countermand any citizen’s view of when life begins violates the freedom of religion clause in the 1st Amendment. It effectively establishes anti-abortion religions.
Finally, there are multiple studies, not mere emotion, suggesting that gun waiting periods actually DO save lives, but no such evidence concerning abortions: abortion waiting periods are merely inconveniences with no countervailing benefit.
Mr Greenberg says..”is that ANY life saved is worth more than the small inconvenience.. “.
Is this the “Trolley Problem”?
At face value I agree with the waiting period but using the “to save one life” defense is weak. Really?
By that rational you would agree and support Mr Rodgers silly cell phone ban.