Friday, January 22, 2016
Now, there’s a push to try again.
“It’s certainly by far and away the will of the Burlington voters,” said Rep. Mary Sullivan (D-Burlington), who is among those championing three bills in the legislature that contain the items Burlington voters overwhelmingly approved.
Sullivan and other Burlington House members have won a daylong hearing next Thursday before the House Government Operations Committee. Mayor Miro Weinberger is lobbying for support of the measures, citing renewed need after a fatal shooting outside the Zen Lounge in downtown Burlington in December. The Burlington City Council this month passed a resolution urging the Legislature to reconsider the issue.
“I’m going to push hard,” Weinberger said, while visiting the Statehouse last week. He has the backing of Vermont’s seven other city mayors. Though the Vermont Mayor’s Coalition has not taken a stance on Burlington’s charter changes themselves, the group made a statement in support of the city’s right to do what it believes is necessary to protect public safety.
Tags: Vermont Sportsmen's Bill of Rights , Vermont Legislature , Shap Smith , Miro Weinberger , Burlington , gun control , Image , Web Only
Friday, December 4, 2015
The leader of a statewide gun-control organization says she doesn't expect her group to fight for tougher gun laws during next year's legislative session, but she does expect to push the issue during Vermont's 2016 campaign season.
"We're definitely expecting to be involved in the election, supporting candidates who take a stand in support of gun violence prevention," Gun Sense Vermont founder Ann Braden said Friday.
That could prompt the Vermont Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs, which supports gun rights, to make its first foray into electoral politics, according to vice president Evan Hughes.
"We're watching and observing what's going on with great interest," Hughes said of a burgeoning debate between Vermont's gubernatorial candidates about the state's gun laws. "The Federation has historically neither rated nor endorsed candidates. What happens in the 2016 election cycle remains to be seen."
Following last week's shooting at a Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado Springs, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Sue Minter and Republican candidate Bruce Lisman expressed support for requiring that those who buy firearms in private sales and at gun shows undergo the same background checks as do those buying such weapons at gun stores. Democratic candidate Matt Dunne and Republican candidate Phil Scott, the lieutenant governor, said they don't support such measures.
Minter, a former state representative and transportation secretary, has since doubled down on her position. In an op-ed her campaign released Thursday, she cited Wednesday's mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., which killed 14 people, as further evidence that Vermont should make background checks universal.
Tags: Senator , Vermont , gun control , Ann Braden , Evan Hughes , Matt Dunne , Sue Minter , Bernie Sanders , Peter Shumlin , Miro Weinberger , gun control , Image , Web Only
Monday, August 10, 2015
Jody L. Herring, 40, was "very calm and laughing," after she was arrested Friday afternoon in the shooting of Lara Sobel, who was killed with a hunting rifle fired at close range in downtown Barre, according to Vermont State Police affidavits. Sobel had been involved in a case in which Herring lost custody of her 9-year-old daughter, state officials say.
"During transportation the female continued to laugh and talk about the victim," Vermont State Police Detective Sgt. Hal Hayes wrote in an affidavit. "Prior to placing the female into the cell she was still laughing and making small talk about the incident like it was no big deal."
Tags: Lara Sobel , Jody Herring , Barre , Vermont State Police , DCF , Scott Williams , Image , Web Only
Thursday, June 18, 2015
In the early 1990s, he opposed the Brady Bill, which mandated criminal background checks for gun buyers, but he supported a federal ban on assault weapons.
After a gunman opened fire on a Colorado movie theater in July 2012, killing 12 and injuring 70, Sanders told the Addison County Independent that "decisions about gun control should be made as close to home as possible — at the state level." But after another gunman killed 20 children and six adults at Connecticut's Sandy Hook Elementary School five months later, he voted for sweeping federal legislation to mandate background checks and ban the sale of assault weapons.
In some respects, Sanders' evolving position on gun laws mirrors that of his Vermont constituents, who used to vociferously oppose gun control but now appear more open to it.
But among the Democratic voters he's courting in his run for president, many of Sanders' past positions seem to be out of the mainstream. In a national poll conducted by Quinnipiac University last July, 80 percent of Democratic voters surveyed said they supported "stricter gun control laws," while only 17 percent opposed them. Ninety-eight percent of Democrats favored the background checks he once opposed.
Tags: Senator , Bernie Sanders , Presidential Campaign , guns , gun control , Charleston , South Carolina , Image , Web Only
Monday, May 11, 2015
First off, those gun silencers you see (and hear go "blip") in James Bond movies? They’re not real.
In real life, the devices don’t silence the sound of a gun. They muffle it to about the noise level of a jackhammer. So gun enthusiasts prefer that they be called suppressors.
“It’s definitely not silent,” said Knox Williams, president and executive director of the American Suppressor Association, an Atlanta-based trade group that represents manufacturers. (His organization formed in 2011 as the American Silencer Association.)
Whatever you call them, they’re illegal in Vermont. But legislators are poised to change that, potentially making it legal both for companies to manufacture suppressors and for Vermonters to use them — except to hunt.
Tags: Vermont legislature , gun suppressors , hunting , Image , Web Only
Friday, May 1, 2015
Shumlin said the bill, S.141, was “a shadow of the legislation that I objected to at the beginning of the legislative session.” He chose to sign the bill in private, rather than at a public ceremony that accompanies many bill signings.
While some gun owners dropped their opposition to the bill because of compromises, others remained strongly opposed and urged Shumlin to veto it.
Shumlin issued a written statement Friday afternoon announcing he’d signed the bill and explaining his reasoning: “Vermonters know that I feel that Vermont’s gun laws make sense for our state. We in Vermont have a culture of using guns to care for and manage our natural resources in a respectful way that has served us well ... [The bill] makes common-sense changes, similar to the ones that I supported to prohibit guns on school grounds, and that is why I signed it.”
Tags: Peter Shumlin , gun control , Gun Sense Vermont , Image , Web Only
Thursday, April 30, 2015
By a 7-1 vote, the House Government Operations Committee voted against pursuing the charter changes, which would require legislative approval. The decision came after legislative lawyer Erik Fitzpatrick warned that the restrictions raise “significant constitutional questions.”
Legislators seized on that as a reason not to launch into what surely would have been a controversial discussion. Lawmakers had just finished a difficult debate in passing gun-control legislation to restrict possession of firearms by felons and the severely mentally ill.
“I think Burlington needs to re-craft these if that’s what they really want,” said Rep. Linda Martin (D-Wolcott).
Tuesday, April 28, 2015
The gun restrictions present significant legal questions that make them unlikely to pass the legislature, said Rep. Donna Sweaney (D-Windsor), chair of the House Government Operations Committee.
“I have a feeling Burlington would spend a lot of time in court if these pass,” Sweaney said.
Her committee is scheduled to hear from legislative lawyers Thursday morning about the three gun-related charter changes, but the committee's agenda includes no other meetings on the subject, signaling that no further action is planned. Vermont municipal charter changes are subject to legislative approval.
Tags: gun-control , charter changes , Vermont legislature , Burlington , Image , Web Only
Thursday, April 23, 2015
Senate Judiciary Committee chair Dick Sears (D-Bennington) was blunt that he wanted to avoid prolonging a difficult debate. “It’s a very emotional, very difficult issue,” Sears said. “I think people would just as soon move on.”
Gov. Peter Shumlin signaled Thursday that he’s likely to sign the bill, S. 141, though he didn’t firmly commit.
“The governor recognizes that the bill is a shadow of the original proposal he objected to and now goes a long way toward meeting reasonable concerns on both sides of this debate. But as usual, he will review the final bill after we have received it,” Shumlin spokesman Scott Coriell said in a written statement.
Tags: gun control , Peter Shumlin , Vermont legislature , Image , Web Only
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
So seemed to be the message Wednesday out of the Vermont Senate, which voted 20 to 8 in favor of new restrictions on who can bear arms.
The legislation, up for final passage Thursday, does not go nearly as far as gun-control activists had hoped earlier this year. It does not, for instance, require those who purchase guns through private sales to undergo background checks. Rather, it bars certain convicted criminals from possessing firearms, and it forces the state to report the names of potentially violent, mentally ill Vermonters to a federal database.
Nevertheless, Wednesday's lopsided, tri-partisan vote demonstrated that despite intense opposition from gun rights supporters, legislators appear willing to take on the politically fraught issue.
Tags: Guns , firearms , Vermont Senate , National Instant Criminal Background Check System , Dick Sears , John Rodgers , Joe Benning , Image , Web Only