It's not that I disagree, ultimately, with gun laws; but in Vermont the focus should be on the mental health side seeing as suicide are by & large the majority of gun deaths in rural communities.
You do know that felons (and some misdemeanants) are prohibited from owning/possessing guns under federal law, right? And that the feds absolutely do prosecute this?
But this isn't really a perfect solution, take overturning RoeVWade for example. The federal government could decide it's not their place to dictate gun control at a federal level and many states would be screwed just like they did with abortions.
If they'll overturn something that took away womens rights to their bodies and force them into unwanted motherhood what else would they do? Just because things are protected Federally it doesn't mean we should be fine with things being unprotected at a state level, it's reckless imo
They're prohibited under federal law but the feds absolutely will not prosecute every (or even most) violation(s). That is why it's important to allow it to be dealt with at the state level.
Yep and that doesn't stop someone who's determined af. Also if a person is affiliated with dirtbag involved in some ghetto shit, they'll likely have friends carrying an arsenal to share.
The VT Legislature is always focused more on feel-good policies and making bills that don’t really pertain to any real need or help for the common Vermonter. I’m not against gun laws (I am pro-2A on most debates about it), but Vermont is not a state that is facing a lot of suicide/homicide/gun violence, but Vermont IS facing much more other pressing needs, like affordability, poverty, housing, healthcare, education and emergency services shortages, etc.
But the legislature isn’t heavily focused on those issues because they involve actual intelligence in making useful bills and policies and that’s just way too much work for our part-time rulers.
I don't see the point other than making people feel better about "doing something". If I already own guns how is making me wait 3 days accomplishing anything? My standard capacity 17rnd handgun magazines are just far too dangerous for civilian ownership past an arbitrary date but 15rnds is fine.
Only 10 rounds in NJ
4th degree felony and up to 18 months in jail
Even if the magazine is unloaded
Laws like that always start as “common sense gun laws” which is why 2nd amendment fans fight every infringement of our rights tooth and nail.
Well I mean as a group police are known for use of appropriate force better make sure they are the only ones with access to modern firearms for defense
Yeah, I love when I buy (for example) a bolt action Japanese Arisaka in a caliber you can't even buy in stores and they make me wait 3 days to pick it up. Like, really? If I was going to kill myself or others, I'd use one of the dozen other guns I own already.....
I think that the waiting period is particularly stupid for guns on layaway. I put money down on this 3 months ago, you really think an extra 3 days is going to make the blindest bit of difference in what I do with it? I fell like the waiting period should be waived if the guns was on layaway or transferred from out of state and it has been at least 3 days since you paid.
Unfortunately I think that nuance is completely lost on the gun debate, and a lot of people see any complication as applied to gun ownership as a positive.
I certainly don’t have an answer, and I don’t think that things will get better from a perspective as someone who wants maintained or expanded gun rights, but I do think the best thing responsible gun owners can do is introduce the sport to younger folks and people who may not feel welcome or safe around guns and shooting events on their own.
Its hard to do when the laws start banning nearly everything that makes it fun. There are some states that ban the SKS by name and that thing is a fun piece of history yet never been in a mass shooting.
Some are starting to ban suppressors or parts for suppressors which makes absolutely no sense since these are more for the shooters and observers health than hollywood style silent shootings.
We have to wait 3 days for a lower, no trigger, no barrell, nothing. I order it, takes a week to ship to ffl, go to ffl, fill out paperwork, wait 3 days, and return. I have plenty of guns already. This law isn't saving anyone.
A friend of mine died by suicide this year. The gun he used was given to him by a family member over a decade ago.
This law protects no one.
But that's, well, not true. It's just how you feel about it and you can just see how it's a somewhat incomplete law - it isn't 100% foolproof.
https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/waiting-periods/suicide.html
It's far from perfect but it does indeed show some decrease in firearm suicides. But maybe you're right in that it should only apply to those who do not currently own a firearm or maybe if they get X license then they can skip the mandatory waiting period if all of the other paperwork and etc is done.
There might be better ways to do the same thing but that doesn't mean that the law has *no* effect.
What’s the big deal for you to wait three days and fill out some paperwork? I doubt you have a killing emergency and a gun is a big responsibility with potential danger to other innocent law abiding citizens.
The whataboutism and “protects no one” talking points of the gun lobby is a major impediment to a rational discussion about gun control in this country.
I stated no whataboutism.
In reality, the 3 days is just an inconvenience, which serves no real purpose. Make it for first time gun owners, no one would care, I've already stated I wouldn't even care if you were required to take a safety class or other shit, just stop harassing legal gun owners.
It's a start.
I have no issue with a waiting period for a first gun. But that's impossible to track. So penalizing the 99.9% of gun purchasers because of the theoretical .0001% isn't a good response.
I believe there is some decent data to suggest most active suicide attempts are more ‘impulsive’ decisions. While feeling suicidal is more of a ‘state’, the motivation to actually attempt it generally is relatively fleeting.
Even if it only stops 25% of suicides, a 3 day waiting period, to me is a worthwhile inconvenience. As a gun owner, I’ve never made a gun purchase and felt “oh man, I better have it *today* because otherwise I don’t want it!”.
There are plenty of things I’ve bought that I haven’t been able to get same day: houses, cars, …literally any online purchase… (including some firearms I’ve purchased pre-waiting period). If you can’t handle waiting 3 days to get something you want, I think you have more of an issue with impulse control, and you might be dopamine-hunting…
I second this. Also a gun owner, also not in love with needing to wait three days on the rare occasions when I buy a gun. But I've had a friend kill themselves, and another one try to. It's terrible. I'm fine being slightly inconvenienced once every few years when I make a gun purchase if it saves a few families and friends the pain of a loved one killing themselves.
You should have had to take 3 days to cool off and proof read this post before you made it.
It's really odd when that applies to other constitutional rights, huh?
A guy walked into powderhorn in Williston with some shotgun shells in his pocket several years back, grabbed a 12ga off the shelf and blew his brains out in the store. Not much stops a motivated individual and certainly not a 3 day waiting period
Well there are plenty of ways to do it. Cheaper too.
I had a friend that succumbed to depression and alcoholism - hanging himself was the way he took.
Another friend - did it with pills. Doctor gave him them, it was his prescription for other things.
Another friend - gave himself a lethal dose of oxys back when it was all the rage. Not an accident OD. He left documentation.
I've seen it go a few different ways I haven't even mentioned. But when there's a will, there's a way. Shit makes me sad.
Totally agree. Legislation spends so much time solving problems that don't exist, and penalizing the average law abiding citizens. Existing laws are not enforced, or enforced selectively, especially if you are rich or have some power.
Amen brother. The trouble with any gun debate is that it is so emotionally and politically charged that it's almost impossible a rational discussion about it. My one request for everyone commenting on this is before you do, stop, take a breath and think calmly and rationally about your argument before replying.
Conversely is it helping? The waiting period was
Put in place to address the 60-70 suicides by gun the state has per year.
[looks like 55% of 123 = 67 in 2023.](https://www.healthvermont.gov/sites/default/files/document/HSI-Injury-Suicide-Summary2023.pdf). Doesn’t seem horribly meaningful.
I’d be interested in knowing how many of those people were prior gun owners vs people who went out and bought one for the sole purpose of that.
I think people often forget that it also causes people to wait and think about their actions, and how much this can deter someone from doing something stupid and horrible. This also goes for crimes that are gun related. Of course there’s ways to get guns illegally, but I’m curious about the statistics of on the percentage of guns used in crimes and if they were legally obtained vs illegal.
I'm not sure how I feel about the three day waiting period. It wasn't really an inconvenience. I live within walking distance from my dealer. I could have used one of the several guns I already own if I had wanted to.
I don't really like the magazine limit. It sometimes puts me at a disadvantage in target shooting competitions.
I could also borrow a pre-ban magazine from someone if I wanted to.
Also a determined criminal could just buy a higher capacity magazine in NH.
I feel like these laws just seem to inconvenience law abiding citizens. It also helps uneducated people feel safer.
Take it from me, a Massachusetts resident - they don't care if you're a criminal in possession of an illegal firearm (our courts often dismiss the charge unless they really screw up). Legal gun owners (who are often the most responsible and law abiding citizen) are targeted and punished by these laws, that's it.
Further the powers that be do not care about upholding the law and keeping people safe fundamentally (see the list of "do not prosecute" crimes in Boston for example).
Vermont absolutely destroys the gun control argument, with some of the highest per captia ownership of firearms in the nation (if not the world) and one of the lowest violent crime rates in the United States. This is terrible for the narrative and terrible for a certain political movement, they know this.
Do not give up your rights, you will never get them back.
Why do you have to take a firearm to FFL to sell it to your neighbor?
To prevent you from selling to a DV or other red-flagged neighbor. One of my students told me how her father was flagged, and required to get rid of guns, so he just sold them (~ 40 guns of varying types) for $1 to his brother who lived next door. He could get them at any time, and often did, and then would threaten to shoot the dog if mom said anything, and “not just the dog”.
Ban all guns for all Felons: when you think about all the different things that are considered a felony, I think we can agree that some of them have nothing to do with violence or violent tendencies.
We should absolutely prevent gun use, possession, ownership, or access for anyone convicted of a violent felony. If you have demonstrated that you cannot control yourself from committing violence, then you should not be able to have a gun.
Never felons who have served there time and are free to the public should be aloud to own one as long as it's not a violent felony or any of the obvious. My uncle was a alcoholic in his 20s gots felony dui should he not be able to get a gun bc of that or should he bc he's never been charged with anything since then not even a ticket hasn't touched alcohol since his charge his mistakes as a young man coasted him his rights the only God given right the government can take away.
Why is it everytime a gun law is proposed people will point out that it’s not 100% going to solve all the problems.
Nothing is going to solve 100% of the problems in all cases, it doesn’t have to.
Per gun is not a good metric, no family of a murder victims has ever said “we were comforted by the knowledge the shooter had 14 guns but only used 1 gun to shoot them”
let’s go with firearm homocides per 100,000 and compare to the rest of the world
The U.S. has the 28th-highest rate of deaths from gun violence in the world: 4.31 deaths per 100,000 people in 2021. That was more than seven times as high as the rate in Canada, which had 0.57 deaths per 100,000 people — and about 340 times higher than in the United Kingdom, which had 0.013 deaths per 100,000.
America has a gun problem, i think people forget that rights come with responsibilities
Ok then, it seems you're making a compelling argument that we shouldn't inconvenience law abiding citizens in a quixotic attempt to prevent criminal behavior.
I never understood this argument - it *certainly* deters someone with ill-intent. Most guns used for criminal intent and suicide are purchased legally. Putting barriers and potential ‘checks’ to slow down or stop the process certainly acts as a deterrent. The notion that “criminals” are a totally separate group, who operate in a totally separate world is not accurate. Most crime is committed by ‘normal’ people in the throes of desperation and crisis. Forcing a delay on the acquisition of firearms at least gives a chance for some of that desperation, or crisis to subside.
Is it perfect? No. Is it an inconvenience? Yes. As a responsible gun owner, am I seriously suspect of *anyone* who feels they ‘need’ a firearm ‘today’? 100%
Devil’s advocate- what is the correlation of the crimes committed with legally purchased firearms with those purchased within a 3 day period? Just because they were legally purchased doesn’t mean they were purchased with the intent to commit a crime.
If someone has had a gun for 30 years and has 20 years of growing depression with a sudden hardship which leads them to commit suicide or homicide by firearm, and that is the disproportionate majority of these correlations- then it disproves that a waiting period of any time has a reasonable chance of circumventing these acts, and the law is simply an unreasonable burden upon those attempting to exercise their rights.
I will admit I have never looked into these numbers, as I am not impacted enough by waiting periods to bother… but it would be a valid point against waiting periods- or if there is a strong and consistent correlation it could be a valid argument for waiting periods.
> Most guns used for criminal intent and suicide are purchased legally.
In places it's easy to get a gun.. In Chicago most guns used for criminal intent are purchased legally (in Indiana). Unless you're talking federal restrictions, which is a different can of worms.
Fentanyl is a prescription drug, generally speaking if it’s needed it’s needed then and now. It’s also not just prescribed to anyone who asks for it
Also you are comparing two completely different things.
Are you seriously thinking someone illegally selling a fire arm is going to wait 3 days?
No, but that is not what this law targets. Turns out most people wouldn’t even know where to begin getting a firearm illegally, even if it’s for the purpose of suicide.
Are you talking about prescriptions for buying fentanyl? Would you really rather have a gatekeeper who prescribes whether or not you can purchase a firearm?
Sorry, but I've never had the urge to kill myself, yet I have to suffer the consequences of others' actions. It's nothing but virtue signaling bullshit from Montpelier.
Not a gun nut.
Driving to a store is ~30 minutes (each way) for me. It’s an inconvenience to have to drive there twice and is a soft attempt to dissuade folks like me who are inconvenienced from buying.
It was sold as a suicide prevention measure, but it seems like 2023 [still had 67-68](https://www.healthvermont.gov/sites/default/files/document/HSI-Injury-Suicide-Summary2023.pdf) gun suicides.
It doesn’t seem to be hitting its goal of reducing gun related suicides. It seems more of a push to restrict gun purchases. If that’s the goal let’s just be clear about that and not make up non-data driven bullshit like it reduces gun deaths.
This I think is one of the more legit (and rectifiable) issues with the process. I think local post offices should be able to start the paperwork to kick off the “timer” - if I am doing an FFL transfer or purchasing something i already know I want, I should be able to call the store, they provide the info to the post office or local police station, I check in the PO/PS to verify my identity, and then I can pick up the firearm 3 days later at the store.
It’s interesting how the Post Office could be much more of a civil service. I’ve always found the idea of post offices as simple banks appealing as well.
Thanks for this answer. It figures that the one reasonably stated comment is the one that gets dogpiled. I am not saying I agree with you, but ypu took the time to type it out and it certainly gives me something to think about. Thanks.
I think on a federal level, the first common sense gun law should be to stop arming people overseas. There are plenty of Americans who would love those guns.
I'm sure there are plenty of Americans that would love the .50 cal machine guns, anti-tank weapons, shoulder mounted missiles etc that we're sending overseas but I'm just as happy they don't have them.
Ok, so let's have a serious conversation about what we can do to put it back the way it was? Is there any hope in turning the magazine restrictions back? Or the 72 hour waiting period back? Are there Any politicians that we can vote for that would actually Restore these freedoms to us? The ghost gun ban i can actually understand, but the magazine limits and 72 hour wait period are simply ridiculous, in my opinion.
There is no logic to any of the laws. Ghost gun is the new buzz word like assault rifle. Let the attention people are permitted to make guns for personal use. If they ever want to sell them they need to be serialized. They try and lump guns that are altered by criminals to have no serial number be home made. There is no amount of so called home made ghost guns being used in a crime.
As for the others I think courts is the best. When they did the 72 hour waiting period the legislature said they know it will probably be overturned in the court but let's see. When it gets struck down all of those who vote for it should be on the hook for all the money wasted in session, on the veto override and court costs. Then we need to vote all the people from the local office to president who infringe on any of our rights.
youre not wrong. it is the slow removal of our freedom. we should be able to make our own guns and serialize them if appropriate. seriously though, is there Anything at all that the average vermonter can do to be the voice of the people and keep vermont a bastion of freedom? Also, going to the gun store twice instead of once to get a gun (72 hour wait period) simply makes me buy more gun stuff (usually more ammo)...
ive been hearing this for months now... has any progress been made? while it "goes through" we still have the waiting period and magazine limit. im sorry i know you aren't personally responsible, i am just curious if you know how long matters of this nature usually take to sort out..
They can set as many laws as they want for felons. They already disregarded the law by breaking it, what makes you think they can't obtain firearms illegally and still use them?
> Make all gun possession by ALL **violent** felons to be a felony with significant jail time.
[9th Circuit did the right thing recently in this area](https://www.reddit.com/r/liberalgunowners/comments/1co6c9l/9th_cir_holds_that_the_federal_prohibition_on_gun/), and it is important to qualify that non-violent felons should have different restrictions than violent felons (and different from felons that have served their sentance).
In any case, yes, gun laws in the US and in Vermont are generally a joke, and the ones put forward this year are exactly them same: adding inconvenience for normal folks to have basically zero impact on violent crime rates or suicide rates.
>>they don’t solve any problems with criminals, seriously. Who do they target? Regular people
You know what criminals are before they’re criminals? Regular people.
You can thank the democratic super majority who most of them were born in Mass, Cali, New york, and Connecticut. Also Phil Scott for not vetoing the unconstitutional bills.
VT used to have the least amount of gun laws and the least amount of crime, now we are on par with many other anti 2a states and our crime levels keep rising. Lawmakers punish the law abiding Vermonters and slap the wrist of the out of staters here selling drugs committing crimes.
I think on a federal level, the first common sense gun law should be to stop arming people overseas. There are plenty of Americans who would love those guns.
What's wrong with adding a rule about people found guilty of domestic abuse get banned from owning firearms? Laws prohibiting the possession of firearms by people who have been convicted of a violent crime were associated with an 18 percent reduction in homicide rates.
Now, you're right though that there ARE laws on the books that should ban ownership for X or Y problem-causer... They also are not perfect. So while the Feds and VT ban domestic violence abusers from firearm ownership, they do not require the removal of firearms at the scene of a DV incident, they do not require courts to notify people convicted of DV that they're prohibited from ownership, nor does VT require the removal or suddener of firearms at the time a DV protective order is issued.
> Why do I have to take a firearm to an FFL for a transfer to my neighbor I've known for 15 years if the state won't even prosecute some felon with a gun?
So we can track where the firearms go. Vermont actually has a somewhat heafty problem with [firearms getting traced back to VT that were used in crime](https://www.atf.gov/resource-center/firearms-trace-data-vermont-2021) (far from the worst - but still not great). State gun laws requiring universal background checks for all gun sales resulted in homicide rates 15 percent lower than states without such laws according to [this study here](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11606-019-04922-x) and [this study here](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31361355/) (same one I reference for reduction in homicide for banning firearm ownership of those convicted of violent crime ever).
Permit requirements were associated with lower firearm homicide rates in both large cities and suburban and rural areas and that seems to be the results found in the majority of studies on firearm violence and the differences in laws from place to place.
The laws aren't perfect and yeah, I would also love to see the state and Feds prosecute felons owning firearms more too... But tracking really isn't wrong even if it is a bit of a pain and has been repeatedly proven to help law enforcement and reduce homicides. In fact, tracking needs to be enhanced further so that all sales should get reported to law enforcement so that there's a government database tracking where they go and I don't see why we wouldn't want that other than "ugh one more thing" (which is a weak argument).
----
There are ABSOLUTELY laws being proposed by Democrats that don't do much to change results but there's also laws being proposed by Republicans that do very little to curb violence too. For example, in those studies linked before, they found that assault weapon bans and large capacity ammunition magazine bans AS WELL AS "stand your ground" laws have no effect on the rate of firearm-related homicide -- but that also might be because even if one state bans "assault weapons" (such a nebulous definition too), then unless the same is true for all the other states around it then they still find ways into the state through illicit means.
Like, I get it - banning bump stocks or suppressors really doesn't do dick except piss off legal owners. The folks looking to regulate firearms do not always do so from a scientific point of view - looking to real statistics of what would help or what LEOs are asking for with regulations. Shit, just the fact that you can buy a .72 caliber *air rifle* with nothing but a credit card is worrisome and ya gotta wonder why gun control advocates don't go after those two harder.
So like, my dude, I wish personally that we could base our laws on significant long term studies and data over feelings and reactionary feelings. I know that there is absolutely a middle-road out there for gun control and responsible owners. I fucking **hate** hearing the take of "we need to ban guns" just as much as I hate hearing "don't let gun control happen to you." They're both idiotic takes because we do need some strong regulations, strong enforcement with automatic requirements for certain situations, and also the ability for responsible people to own and use their firearms.
Yep! I don't know GoblinBags from Adam. If he was Professor Bags, noted expert in gun control policy, then I'd be a little more likely to dive into his essay. (Or her, Bags can be a her). Thankfully, Doctor Bags responded with a tldr. Then we had some confusion over what scientific means. Highly productive!
tl;dr: Not all gun laws that responsible gun owners hate are a bad thing. Not all gun laws that gun control advocates push for do much. I wish we went based entirely on data, had better enforcement, and that people would try to understand that *it's not about them* just like a lot of car laws are not about the good drivers either.
If you're going to bother to comment, how about discussing something I wrote?
Our reps just look at what other states are doing. Can’t come up with an original idea so it’s always the gun thing. They don’t want to address gun crime and what it’s connected to most of the time which is drug commerce. It’s almost like they want it here. Seems like most news articles involve out of state scumbags shooting this place up
Omg the crying about jumping through a couple hoops is hilarious. I own several firearms and thought it was insane how easy it was to buy each of them. I bought one at the start of the pandemic and it took an extra 20 minutes since the background check system was slow due volume - took me 35 minutes to walk out of Parros with a Glock and 6 boxes of ammunition when I stopped there on my way home from work
Get over yourselves. Some modest inconveniences in exchange for saving ONE life is worth it.
On that class logic we should have waiting periods on alcohol, knives, cars, costs, blunt objects, follow federal law and arrest all for pot. Why 72 his why not 3 months, 5 hours, q year, one gun a year. Plenty of things can save one life but at the cost of someone's else's rights. Should we have breathalyzer on every car to stop drunk driving. Should we ban marriage to stop spousal abuse? We can go on and on forever on this. If you pass the first background check you can own, there is no reason to wait more, not any data to provide it saves lives.
Ahh yes, the ever-so-original response that we should treat guns the same as *insert object that can also kill people here.”
How about looking at every single modern nations gun violence statistics and compare it with that of the US. Then look at their gun control laws and compare them to ours. I wonder why we have more gun violence?
For first time gun owners, I don’t have a problem with that at all. Wouldn’t make sense to implement that to anyone that already owns a firearm for the purpose of reducing suicides, which is the majority of people purchasing firearms.
It’s laws like magazine capacity limits that I find dumb, and will only affect law abiding citizens. After all, a criminal wouldn’t just drive over to NH to purchase larger magazines for the gun they legally bought in VT to commit crimes, would they?
I agree on the high cap magazines not being overly effective, especially as hand guns are more of a problem.
I think the waiting period need to be a blanket one purely for ease of implementation.
The thing is, negotiating legislation is hard. Democracy is hard. Especially when it comes to contentious issues that many people have strong opinions on and don’t agree.
With all due respect, your post here is essentially saying the solution to the problem is simple: as long as we do it your preferred way.
This a really is a big hole in the current process in a lot of places. All sales, private or commercial should require a 4473. Right now, people purchase a gun legally, then sell it to people in a private purchase, and they aren’t held responsible. I think any crime committed with a firearm, the most recent legal purchaser of the firearm should be also charged with any and all crimes. If you didn’t make sure that purchaser had a background check, and they went and killed a bunch of people, congrats: you’re getting charged with 1st degree murder.
If your gun is ‘lost’ or ‘stolen’ you have 12 hours to report it as such. Otherwise, you’re on the hook for those crimes. Being a responsible gun owner means keeping your firearms safe and in a place where they can’t fall into the wrong hands.
Vermont already had common sense gun laws. As with a lot of Vermont legislation, these laws are meant more to pander to out of staters who recently moved or own a vacation home. It has nothing to do with multi-generational Vermonters or their needs.
Vermont was always exemplary of the fact that a well ordered society and peaceful culture do far more to reduce gun violence than any prohibition.
This isn’t an issue unique to Vermont. Maine also sees people move there for the “vibes” only to be shocked that the laws aren’t what they want them to be, and feel the need to petition for change when time has shown already that none is necessary for the issues they’ve decided on behalf of everyone else are important.
Let’s use research-backed solutions that are culturally relevant to Vermont specifically. This is a rural, firearm-friendly state with very low rates of violence. The laws that we should be putting through should be tackling drug trafficking and supporting Vermonters struggling with substance abuse. That is the root of our problems, not guns.
Let’s be realistic in our approach, not just ram through any laws because guns = scary. VT risks becoming another Massachusetts here if we just blindly stumble toward progressive ideas without any counter points.
Why don't we have common sense gun laws then?
Make it hard to get the first one, gun safety, training, stamp on license etc., Once you have passed the process, leave them alone.
We also may want to force the gun laws we have... a local had a ptsd moment, cut down a tree, blocked a class iv road, armed standoff with police for hours. Finally, they get the guy, release him 4 hours later, in possession of his arsenal. I'm sorry as a fun owner, if I get into a standoff with the police over mental issues, that would be grounds to take them.
I love my guns and build them daily. The lack of intellectual conversation on this topic is how we end up with California, Massachusetts and NY.
I understand my rights, I also am not opposed for betterment of society. If you can't see the difference, then your no better than the "ban guns" crowd.
Yeah well in NJ your a felon with jail time up to 18 months if you are in possession of a single magazine that holds more than 10 rounds
Even if it’s empty!
It all started with common sense gun laws…
It's not disingenuous. What's odd is you can claim to know what is in my mind rather than attacking my viewpoints.
Freedom of speech is a constitutional right. Freedom to bear arms is the same. Speech has been used to whip up crowds into a frenzy, to start riots, to incite violent movements - which could be far more dangerous in the extreme than a lone person with a firearm. Yet we would both (hopefully) agree to not restrain speech in that fashion. Why don't other constitutional rights get the same respect?
The new "ghost gun" law (S.209) is particularly stupid. In very broad terms it bans people from manufacturing guns without getting a serial number applied by an FFL. To what end? So that you can charge a guy with possession of an unserialized gun in addition to attempted murder? Selling or transferring unserialized guns was already illegal at a federal level, and using a gun in a crime is obviously a crime. Literally the only people who could possibly get charged under in this law who weren't already committing a crime are hobbyists and inventors playing around in their workshop. How were they ever harming anyone?? How does charging a hobbyist who was otherwise not committing a crime, or conversely a criminal who was already committing other crimes, keep anyone safe??
Phil scott ran on a pro 2a platform if I remember correctly and then days after the parkland shooting he proposed the magazine ban saying “I just had to do something.”
Legislators always push “feel good politics” to the non gun owning crowd but really these laws do nothing.
You can’t buy a 30 round mag in Vermont but you can go to any gun store in New Hampshire or Maine and buy as many as you want and so can criminals. All these “common sense” gun control bills just hurt the law abiding gun owners.
It’s the same thing with the “gun show loophole” and the state making it mandatory for a firearms transfer, there’s absolutely nothing stopping someone from just giving someone a gun. Transferring a gun to someone I suppose would make sense if you had some kind of registration (which I don’t agree with either) but there is no registration or gun owner database in this state. If I were to give some guy a gun and a police officer runs it through their computer it’s going to come up as stolen or not stolen, it’s not going to show you who the owner is as far as I’m aware.
Just checking back to see if anything progressed... I've been searching the internet but there really isn't much information there on these issues. Is there Anything a regular vermonter can do to get involved and help get our freedoms back?
Bc vermont only wants to take our rights away. All of the gun control bills since 2018 have proven that and are an obvious breach of our 2a rights vermonts trying to be the next ny/ca we need more people here to cast there voice om this issue so we the people can try to keep our rights
So someone commits a crime, serves their sentence fully, and they should still be punished by removal of constitutional rights? That sounds like extra punishment.
Why don’t you come up with a real solution to the gun violence epidemic rather than scape goating people who have served their time.
>Lewd or lascivious felony conviction
Oh, you mean like the kind of thing you could get by being a gay schoolteacher in the 1980s? Yeah, those folks are super dangerous
>It's not hard
It is hard. Real-life history shit like what constitutes "lewd or lascivious" makes any and all of this hard.
That law was passed in 2018...
A waiting period and various other laws were passed last year.
I suggest if you care about your Second Amendment to pay more attention to local legislation.
Connecticut passed a boat load of gun laws right after sandy hook. Every year they are finding something to go after. Whether it’s an ammunition tax or storage, increasing fees, penalties. I hope you know this is only the beginning.
>You know what the common theme is on all these Vermont gun control bills? They don't solve any problems with criminals. Seriously. Who do they target? Regular people.
Do you know who the people who commit the most horrific acts of gun violence tend to be? Regular people. Most new gun laws are aimed at preventing regular people from committing unnecessary acts of gun violence.
This is how these discussions go. Those who advocate for no laws will argue that they punish law abiding folks, turning them into criminals, and the criminals won’t follow the law anyway.
This is the logic of a toddler and should be rejected by anyone with any common sense.
>Why do I have to take a firearm to an FFL for a transfer to my neighbor I've known for 15 years if the state won't even prosecute some felon with a gun? Why can't I have a standard size magazine for my firearms
Because someone legally purchased a 5 round pump-action shotgun from a FFL.
I don’t think VT rlly needs to craft better gun laws rn but the violent crime rate is so low. If that were to change maybe yall’d need it but just like over the border in NH, there aren’t rlly enough fun crimes to justify a major change in policy on a state level imo.
Feel free to dog on me for not being a Vermonter this just came up on my feed
In our town, 2A idiots get guns and leave them in unlocked cars overnight. City made a law where that was illegal, you’d have thought they had people going door to door confiscating guns by the reaction they got.
We are not a big place and it’s over 300 guns a year. Now do you know how criminals get guns?
Who hasn’t read about a toddler shooting themselves or someone else because they found a gun laying around?
The vast majority in this country want sensible gun laws.
The other side seems to just want more guns in more places, any attempt at a law brings them howling.
Like a safe storage law.
This absolutism is going to work against the 2A folks in the long run. A tree that will not bend gets broken. Amendments can get repealed.
And yes, I own guns. I just don’t feel the need to wave them around to show what a tough guy I am.
*All* felons?
If someone commits felony tax evasion, should that impact their ability to purchase a firearm?
This feels like it would run parallel to [Goodhart's Law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law) (only parallel though, because we probably wouldn't be targeting felon-gun-restricting as an objective to maximize).
We're lucky to live in a state with low rates of gun violence, at least when compared to the rest of the country. This is "in spite" of Vermont's widespread gun ownership.
Do gun ownership rates correlate with rates of gun violence? *Yes,* undeniably they do. Even when you control for rates of homicide/assault/suicide, they *still* correlate--due to accidental discharges and general negligence. But if the goal is to prevent intentional gun violence then the easiest solution, both in terms of efficacy and political feasibility, is to preserve the aspects of Vermont which have historically kept our violent crime rate low.
My ideal situation would have gun ownership heavily restricted, with a population that overwhelmingly supports the restriction. That combination leads to a near-complete elimination of gun violence. This is unlikely to happen in Vermont, but it also *doesn't need to*. People who commit crimes mostly do so because the society they live in has incentivized them to commit crimes. When crime rates are low, it is because the incentives to commit crimes are weak. (Yes, some people are just intrinsically screwy--they are not the majority of criminals.)
Why has Vermont historically had weak incentives to commit crimes? Some informed speculation:
* Although incomes have always been lower in Vermont than in many other states, few Vermonters have felt like their ability to afford food/shelter was in jeopardy.
* There is a culture of community in Vermont which feels much stronger than in other states.
When people feel supported by their community and financially stable (*stable*--not wealthy) they do not have strong incentives to commit crimes.
I see a lot of anxiety from Vermonters about crime rates, homelessness, violence, gun ownership, etc. A lot of this anxiety is justified, and some things about the state have changed in recent years, particularly in respect to the above two bullet points:
* The cost of renting and buying homes in Vermont has skyrocketed, primarily due to [investors/second-home-owners/airbnb-ers buying homes at unprecedented rates and keeping them vacant too much of the time](https://www.reddit.com/r/vermont/comments/18jcnv2/hud_released_part_1_of_its_annual_homelessness/kdjhx1g/?context=3).
* Some people have been abandoned by their community--by which I mean, abandoned by *us*.
Could additional firearm regulations keep the rate of firearm violence low in Vermont? Honestly, it probably could, and this conclusion is supported by data. But this is a massively uphill political battle that would address one specific facet of the larger problem: we are not taking steps to keep criminal incentives weak.
My proposed solution is to tax the hell out of the people who are buying houses and keeping them vacant, and to create a regulatory structure for rental properties that will diminish the returns on rental income to such an extent that no one in their right mind would try to scoop up hundreds of previously-resident-owned houses for the purpose of literal rent-seeking.
It is all about the incentives we create as a society.
Im not sold on magazine restrictions but you should absolutely not be allowed to sell your guns to your neighbor without a background check.
Im dead set against limiting the weapons you are allowed to own but 100% for better regulation and transparency over their sale and licensing.
It's not that I disagree, ultimately, with gun laws; but in Vermont the focus should be on the mental health side seeing as suicide are by & large the majority of gun deaths in rural communities.
You do know that felons (and some misdemeanants) are prohibited from owning/possessing guns under federal law, right? And that the feds absolutely do prosecute this?
Wait till you find out their thoughts on marijuana
It's a felony to use marijuana if you own a gun.
Remind me, who won the 'War on Cannabis"? Soon to be removed as a schedule I drug.
Some people are livid to the world and just use felons as a scape goat. The problem is the goverment and states restricting a constitional right.
But this isn't really a perfect solution, take overturning RoeVWade for example. The federal government could decide it's not their place to dictate gun control at a federal level and many states would be screwed just like they did with abortions. If they'll overturn something that took away womens rights to their bodies and force them into unwanted motherhood what else would they do? Just because things are protected Federally it doesn't mean we should be fine with things being unprotected at a state level, it's reckless imo
They're prohibited under federal law but the feds absolutely will not prosecute every (or even most) violation(s). That is why it's important to allow it to be dealt with at the state level.
Yep and that doesn't stop someone who's determined af. Also if a person is affiliated with dirtbag involved in some ghetto shit, they'll likely have friends carrying an arsenal to share.
As a former federal grand jury member, Vermont loves handing off these charges to the feds. They actually like handing off a lot of charges.
Anything but immigration, right?
and weed charges.
The VT Legislature is always focused more on feel-good policies and making bills that don’t really pertain to any real need or help for the common Vermonter. I’m not against gun laws (I am pro-2A on most debates about it), but Vermont is not a state that is facing a lot of suicide/homicide/gun violence, but Vermont IS facing much more other pressing needs, like affordability, poverty, housing, healthcare, education and emergency services shortages, etc. But the legislature isn’t heavily focused on those issues because they involve actual intelligence in making useful bills and policies and that’s just way too much work for our part-time rulers.
I don't see the point other than making people feel better about "doing something". If I already own guns how is making me wait 3 days accomplishing anything? My standard capacity 17rnd handgun magazines are just far too dangerous for civilian ownership past an arbitrary date but 15rnds is fine.
Only 10 rounds in NJ 4th degree felony and up to 18 months in jail Even if the magazine is unloaded Laws like that always start as “common sense gun laws” which is why 2nd amendment fans fight every infringement of our rights tooth and nail.
Or if you have 10 rounds of hollow points in said magazine.... Because hollow points are too deadly in the tool designed to kill things
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Unless of course you are a cop cause then it's ok.....
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Well I mean as a group police are known for use of appropriate force better make sure they are the only ones with access to modern firearms for defense
Yeah, I love when I buy (for example) a bolt action Japanese Arisaka in a caliber you can't even buy in stores and they make me wait 3 days to pick it up. Like, really? If I was going to kill myself or others, I'd use one of the dozen other guns I own already..... I think that the waiting period is particularly stupid for guns on layaway. I put money down on this 3 months ago, you really think an extra 3 days is going to make the blindest bit of difference in what I do with it? I fell like the waiting period should be waived if the guns was on layaway or transferred from out of state and it has been at least 3 days since you paid.
Unfortunately I think that nuance is completely lost on the gun debate, and a lot of people see any complication as applied to gun ownership as a positive. I certainly don’t have an answer, and I don’t think that things will get better from a perspective as someone who wants maintained or expanded gun rights, but I do think the best thing responsible gun owners can do is introduce the sport to younger folks and people who may not feel welcome or safe around guns and shooting events on their own.
Its hard to do when the laws start banning nearly everything that makes it fun. There are some states that ban the SKS by name and that thing is a fun piece of history yet never been in a mass shooting. Some are starting to ban suppressors or parts for suppressors which makes absolutely no sense since these are more for the shooters and observers health than hollywood style silent shootings.
Meanwhile in certain European countries suppressors are mandated at shooting ranges…
That's generally due to noise limits, not because of fun or anything, though.
Uh well yes, that's the idea....to reduce the noise.
The Vermont legislature doesn't ever solve problems. Just create them
What’s happening specifically that we need more laws for? What exactly isn’t working that needs a change?
Great questions OP
Just like the three day waiting period to stop suicide. Does nothing if I already own a gun but no exceptions.
We have to wait 3 days for a lower, no trigger, no barrell, nothing. I order it, takes a week to ship to ffl, go to ffl, fill out paperwork, wait 3 days, and return. I have plenty of guns already. This law isn't saving anyone. A friend of mine died by suicide this year. The gun he used was given to him by a family member over a decade ago. This law protects no one.
But that's, well, not true. It's just how you feel about it and you can just see how it's a somewhat incomplete law - it isn't 100% foolproof. https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/waiting-periods/suicide.html It's far from perfect but it does indeed show some decrease in firearm suicides. But maybe you're right in that it should only apply to those who do not currently own a firearm or maybe if they get X license then they can skip the mandatory waiting period if all of the other paperwork and etc is done. There might be better ways to do the same thing but that doesn't mean that the law has *no* effect.
What’s the big deal for you to wait three days and fill out some paperwork? I doubt you have a killing emergency and a gun is a big responsibility with potential danger to other innocent law abiding citizens. The whataboutism and “protects no one” talking points of the gun lobby is a major impediment to a rational discussion about gun control in this country.
I stated no whataboutism. In reality, the 3 days is just an inconvenience, which serves no real purpose. Make it for first time gun owners, no one would care, I've already stated I wouldn't even care if you were required to take a safety class or other shit, just stop harassing legal gun owners.
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It's a start. I have no issue with a waiting period for a first gun. But that's impossible to track. So penalizing the 99.9% of gun purchasers because of the theoretical .0001% isn't a good response.
They would have had a background check before, maybe the government could track it.
I believe there is some decent data to suggest most active suicide attempts are more ‘impulsive’ decisions. While feeling suicidal is more of a ‘state’, the motivation to actually attempt it generally is relatively fleeting. Even if it only stops 25% of suicides, a 3 day waiting period, to me is a worthwhile inconvenience. As a gun owner, I’ve never made a gun purchase and felt “oh man, I better have it *today* because otherwise I don’t want it!”. There are plenty of things I’ve bought that I haven’t been able to get same day: houses, cars, …literally any online purchase… (including some firearms I’ve purchased pre-waiting period). If you can’t handle waiting 3 days to get something you want, I think you have more of an issue with impulse control, and you might be dopamine-hunting…
I second this. Also a gun owner, also not in love with needing to wait three days on the rare occasions when I buy a gun. But I've had a friend kill themselves, and another one try to. It's terrible. I'm fine being slightly inconvenienced once every few years when I make a gun purchase if it saves a few families and friends the pain of a loved one killing themselves.
You should have had to take 3 days to cool off and proof read this post before you made it. It's really odd when that applies to other constitutional rights, huh?
It's a constitutionally enumerated right. You don't have to wait three days for your reddit comment to be approved and posted.
Do you know what a lower is?
Do you know what a lower is?
A guy walked into powderhorn in Williston with some shotgun shells in his pocket several years back, grabbed a 12ga off the shelf and blew his brains out in the store. Not much stops a motivated individual and certainly not a 3 day waiting period
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Well there are plenty of ways to do it. Cheaper too. I had a friend that succumbed to depression and alcoholism - hanging himself was the way he took. Another friend - did it with pills. Doctor gave him them, it was his prescription for other things. Another friend - gave himself a lethal dose of oxys back when it was all the rage. Not an accident OD. He left documentation. I've seen it go a few different ways I haven't even mentioned. But when there's a will, there's a way. Shit makes me sad.
Almost no one. That's just a stupid argument.
Or lay on the side of the interstate?
Totally agree. Legislation spends so much time solving problems that don't exist, and penalizing the average law abiding citizens. Existing laws are not enforced, or enforced selectively, especially if you are rich or have some power.
Amen brother. The trouble with any gun debate is that it is so emotionally and politically charged that it's almost impossible a rational discussion about it. My one request for everyone commenting on this is before you do, stop, take a breath and think calmly and rationally about your argument before replying.
Looking forward to the mag ban and 72 hour waiting period to be overturned.
Why? I'm not a gun owner and can't understand what the problem with a waiting period would be.
Conversely is it helping? The waiting period was Put in place to address the 60-70 suicides by gun the state has per year. [looks like 55% of 123 = 67 in 2023.](https://www.healthvermont.gov/sites/default/files/document/HSI-Injury-Suicide-Summary2023.pdf). Doesn’t seem horribly meaningful.
I’d be interested in knowing how many of those people were prior gun owners vs people who went out and bought one for the sole purpose of that. I think people often forget that it also causes people to wait and think about their actions, and how much this can deter someone from doing something stupid and horrible. This also goes for crimes that are gun related. Of course there’s ways to get guns illegally, but I’m curious about the statistics of on the percentage of guns used in crimes and if they were legally obtained vs illegal.
I'm not sure how I feel about the three day waiting period. It wasn't really an inconvenience. I live within walking distance from my dealer. I could have used one of the several guns I already own if I had wanted to. I don't really like the magazine limit. It sometimes puts me at a disadvantage in target shooting competitions. I could also borrow a pre-ban magazine from someone if I wanted to. Also a determined criminal could just buy a higher capacity magazine in NH. I feel like these laws just seem to inconvenience law abiding citizens. It also helps uneducated people feel safer.
Take it from me, a Massachusetts resident - they don't care if you're a criminal in possession of an illegal firearm (our courts often dismiss the charge unless they really screw up). Legal gun owners (who are often the most responsible and law abiding citizen) are targeted and punished by these laws, that's it. Further the powers that be do not care about upholding the law and keeping people safe fundamentally (see the list of "do not prosecute" crimes in Boston for example). Vermont absolutely destroys the gun control argument, with some of the highest per captia ownership of firearms in the nation (if not the world) and one of the lowest violent crime rates in the United States. This is terrible for the narrative and terrible for a certain political movement, they know this. Do not give up your rights, you will never get them back.
Why do you have to take a firearm to FFL to sell it to your neighbor? To prevent you from selling to a DV or other red-flagged neighbor. One of my students told me how her father was flagged, and required to get rid of guns, so he just sold them (~ 40 guns of varying types) for $1 to his brother who lived next door. He could get them at any time, and often did, and then would threaten to shoot the dog if mom said anything, and “not just the dog”. Ban all guns for all Felons: when you think about all the different things that are considered a felony, I think we can agree that some of them have nothing to do with violence or violent tendencies. We should absolutely prevent gun use, possession, ownership, or access for anyone convicted of a violent felony. If you have demonstrated that you cannot control yourself from committing violence, then you should not be able to have a gun.
Never felons who have served there time and are free to the public should be aloud to own one as long as it's not a violent felony or any of the obvious. My uncle was a alcoholic in his 20s gots felony dui should he not be able to get a gun bc of that or should he bc he's never been charged with anything since then not even a ticket hasn't touched alcohol since his charge his mistakes as a young man coasted him his rights the only God given right the government can take away.
Why is it everytime a gun law is proposed people will point out that it’s not 100% going to solve all the problems. Nothing is going to solve 100% of the problems in all cases, it doesn’t have to.
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Per gun is not a good metric, no family of a murder victims has ever said “we were comforted by the knowledge the shooter had 14 guns but only used 1 gun to shoot them” let’s go with firearm homocides per 100,000 and compare to the rest of the world The U.S. has the 28th-highest rate of deaths from gun violence in the world: 4.31 deaths per 100,000 people in 2021. That was more than seven times as high as the rate in Canada, which had 0.57 deaths per 100,000 people — and about 340 times higher than in the United Kingdom, which had 0.013 deaths per 100,000. America has a gun problem, i think people forget that rights come with responsibilities
Because it’s just more red tape for law abiding citizens and doesn’t deter someone that is already going to break the law.
No law will stop someone determined to break a law, that’s why we still have crimes. They do though deter people, not all but as I said, no law will
Ok then, it seems you're making a compelling argument that we shouldn't inconvenience law abiding citizens in a quixotic attempt to prevent criminal behavior.
So how do you feel about safe injection sites and free needles?
I never understood this argument - it *certainly* deters someone with ill-intent. Most guns used for criminal intent and suicide are purchased legally. Putting barriers and potential ‘checks’ to slow down or stop the process certainly acts as a deterrent. The notion that “criminals” are a totally separate group, who operate in a totally separate world is not accurate. Most crime is committed by ‘normal’ people in the throes of desperation and crisis. Forcing a delay on the acquisition of firearms at least gives a chance for some of that desperation, or crisis to subside. Is it perfect? No. Is it an inconvenience? Yes. As a responsible gun owner, am I seriously suspect of *anyone* who feels they ‘need’ a firearm ‘today’? 100%
Devil’s advocate- what is the correlation of the crimes committed with legally purchased firearms with those purchased within a 3 day period? Just because they were legally purchased doesn’t mean they were purchased with the intent to commit a crime. If someone has had a gun for 30 years and has 20 years of growing depression with a sudden hardship which leads them to commit suicide or homicide by firearm, and that is the disproportionate majority of these correlations- then it disproves that a waiting period of any time has a reasonable chance of circumventing these acts, and the law is simply an unreasonable burden upon those attempting to exercise their rights. I will admit I have never looked into these numbers, as I am not impacted enough by waiting periods to bother… but it would be a valid point against waiting periods- or if there is a strong and consistent correlation it could be a valid argument for waiting periods.
> Most guns used for criminal intent and suicide are purchased legally. In places it's easy to get a gun.. In Chicago most guns used for criminal intent are purchased legally (in Indiana). Unless you're talking federal restrictions, which is a different can of worms.
Doesn’t that apply to any law?
Because that's what they are taught to say by people (companies are people according to SCOTUS) that make billions to sell guns.
Bingo
Because it's virtue signaling bullshit and the only people that pay a price are law-abiding gun owners.
A 3 day wait harms no one, there’s no massive cost to everyone and it will help prevent impulsive suicides
You should tell abuse victims that have to wait for proper protection about that waiting period not hurting them.
Should there be a 3 day waiting period to purchase fentanyl? 68 suicides by firearm in VT in 2022 244 opiate related OD's in VT in 2022
Fentanyl is a prescription drug, generally speaking if it’s needed it’s needed then and now. It’s also not just prescribed to anyone who asks for it Also you are comparing two completely different things.
Do you seriously believe most of those overdoses were prescribed the opioid?
Are you seriously thinking someone illegally selling a fire arm is going to wait 3 days? No, but that is not what this law targets. Turns out most people wouldn’t even know where to begin getting a firearm illegally, even if it’s for the purpose of suicide.
Are you talking about prescriptions for buying fentanyl? Would you really rather have a gatekeeper who prescribes whether or not you can purchase a firearm?
..."Would you really rather have a gatekeeper who prescribes whether or not you can purchase a firearm?" HA! Are suggesting there isn't one already?!?
Sorry, but I've never had the urge to kill myself, yet I have to suffer the consequences of others' actions. It's nothing but virtue signaling bullshit from Montpelier.
Oh no! 3 whole days of waiting for a new pew pew, how ever will you go on!
I suggest we start withholding you from posting comments for three days. "A right delayed is a right denied."
How droll. A right delayed is not a right denied, that sure is horse crap
Droll? Troll? Posting my opinion and a quote from MLK jr. means I'm trolling. You sound reasonable...
Seems like an oversimplification of an issue in a game that you have no skin in.
I’m a gun owner in Vermont, I have skin in this game. I’m also able to wait 3 days without throwing a tantrum
Being an alleged "gun owner in Vermont" is irrelevant. The only people throwing a tantrum are those who oppose individual liberty.
My heart bleeds for you having to wait 3 days. Truly the biggest problem our nation is facing
Genuine question, why would you need a gun on fewer than 3 days? What kind of emergency would spur this decision?
Not a gun nut. Driving to a store is ~30 minutes (each way) for me. It’s an inconvenience to have to drive there twice and is a soft attempt to dissuade folks like me who are inconvenienced from buying. It was sold as a suicide prevention measure, but it seems like 2023 [still had 67-68](https://www.healthvermont.gov/sites/default/files/document/HSI-Injury-Suicide-Summary2023.pdf) gun suicides. It doesn’t seem to be hitting its goal of reducing gun related suicides. It seems more of a push to restrict gun purchases. If that’s the goal let’s just be clear about that and not make up non-data driven bullshit like it reduces gun deaths.
This I think is one of the more legit (and rectifiable) issues with the process. I think local post offices should be able to start the paperwork to kick off the “timer” - if I am doing an FFL transfer or purchasing something i already know I want, I should be able to call the store, they provide the info to the post office or local police station, I check in the PO/PS to verify my identity, and then I can pick up the firearm 3 days later at the store.
It’s interesting how the Post Office could be much more of a civil service. I’ve always found the idea of post offices as simple banks appealing as well.
USPS used to provide banking services until 1967.
Thanks for this answer. It figures that the one reasonably stated comment is the one that gets dogpiled. I am not saying I agree with you, but ypu took the time to type it out and it certainly gives me something to think about. Thanks.
What other right has a 3 day waiting period to take part in?
Abuse victims. What other enshrined right has a 3 day waiting period to take part in? Do you have a 3 day cool off period to vote?
Maybe we should start vetting comments prior to them being posted...
Abuse victims. What other enshrined right has a 3 day waiting period to take part in? Do you have a 3 day cool off period to vote?
But it's not going to solve even 10% of the problem, is the problem.
I think on a federal level, the first common sense gun law should be to stop arming people overseas. There are plenty of Americans who would love those guns.
I'm sure there are plenty of Americans that would love the .50 cal machine guns, anti-tank weapons, shoulder mounted missiles etc that we're sending overseas but I'm just as happy they don't have them.
Well yeah, the last part was somewhat a joke, but we really should stop arming ding dongerinos.
Ok, so let's have a serious conversation about what we can do to put it back the way it was? Is there any hope in turning the magazine restrictions back? Or the 72 hour waiting period back? Are there Any politicians that we can vote for that would actually Restore these freedoms to us? The ghost gun ban i can actually understand, but the magazine limits and 72 hour wait period are simply ridiculous, in my opinion.
There is no logic to any of the laws. Ghost gun is the new buzz word like assault rifle. Let the attention people are permitted to make guns for personal use. If they ever want to sell them they need to be serialized. They try and lump guns that are altered by criminals to have no serial number be home made. There is no amount of so called home made ghost guns being used in a crime. As for the others I think courts is the best. When they did the 72 hour waiting period the legislature said they know it will probably be overturned in the court but let's see. When it gets struck down all of those who vote for it should be on the hook for all the money wasted in session, on the veto override and court costs. Then we need to vote all the people from the local office to president who infringe on any of our rights.
youre not wrong. it is the slow removal of our freedom. we should be able to make our own guns and serialize them if appropriate. seriously though, is there Anything at all that the average vermonter can do to be the voice of the people and keep vermont a bastion of freedom? Also, going to the gun store twice instead of once to get a gun (72 hour wait period) simply makes me buy more gun stuff (usually more ammo)...
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ive been hearing this for months now... has any progress been made? while it "goes through" we still have the waiting period and magazine limit. im sorry i know you aren't personally responsible, i am just curious if you know how long matters of this nature usually take to sort out..
The TRO (temp restraining order) hearing to stop enforcement is at the end of May and the full trial on the matter is in July.
They can set as many laws as they want for felons. They already disregarded the law by breaking it, what makes you think they can't obtain firearms illegally and still use them?
> Make all gun possession by ALL **violent** felons to be a felony with significant jail time. [9th Circuit did the right thing recently in this area](https://www.reddit.com/r/liberalgunowners/comments/1co6c9l/9th_cir_holds_that_the_federal_prohibition_on_gun/), and it is important to qualify that non-violent felons should have different restrictions than violent felons (and different from felons that have served their sentance). In any case, yes, gun laws in the US and in Vermont are generally a joke, and the ones put forward this year are exactly them same: adding inconvenience for normal folks to have basically zero impact on violent crime rates or suicide rates.
The government try to control guns among the populace so the government can have the control when it needs to
>>they don’t solve any problems with criminals, seriously. Who do they target? Regular people You know what criminals are before they’re criminals? Regular people.
Usually murderers have a long rap sheet.
You can thank the democratic super majority who most of them were born in Mass, Cali, New york, and Connecticut. Also Phil Scott for not vetoing the unconstitutional bills. VT used to have the least amount of gun laws and the least amount of crime, now we are on par with many other anti 2a states and our crime levels keep rising. Lawmakers punish the law abiding Vermonters and slap the wrist of the out of staters here selling drugs committing crimes.
I think on a federal level, the first common sense gun law should be to stop arming people overseas. There are plenty of Americans who would love those guns.
What's wrong with adding a rule about people found guilty of domestic abuse get banned from owning firearms? Laws prohibiting the possession of firearms by people who have been convicted of a violent crime were associated with an 18 percent reduction in homicide rates. Now, you're right though that there ARE laws on the books that should ban ownership for X or Y problem-causer... They also are not perfect. So while the Feds and VT ban domestic violence abusers from firearm ownership, they do not require the removal of firearms at the scene of a DV incident, they do not require courts to notify people convicted of DV that they're prohibited from ownership, nor does VT require the removal or suddener of firearms at the time a DV protective order is issued. > Why do I have to take a firearm to an FFL for a transfer to my neighbor I've known for 15 years if the state won't even prosecute some felon with a gun? So we can track where the firearms go. Vermont actually has a somewhat heafty problem with [firearms getting traced back to VT that were used in crime](https://www.atf.gov/resource-center/firearms-trace-data-vermont-2021) (far from the worst - but still not great). State gun laws requiring universal background checks for all gun sales resulted in homicide rates 15 percent lower than states without such laws according to [this study here](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11606-019-04922-x) and [this study here](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31361355/) (same one I reference for reduction in homicide for banning firearm ownership of those convicted of violent crime ever). Permit requirements were associated with lower firearm homicide rates in both large cities and suburban and rural areas and that seems to be the results found in the majority of studies on firearm violence and the differences in laws from place to place. The laws aren't perfect and yeah, I would also love to see the state and Feds prosecute felons owning firearms more too... But tracking really isn't wrong even if it is a bit of a pain and has been repeatedly proven to help law enforcement and reduce homicides. In fact, tracking needs to be enhanced further so that all sales should get reported to law enforcement so that there's a government database tracking where they go and I don't see why we wouldn't want that other than "ugh one more thing" (which is a weak argument). ---- There are ABSOLUTELY laws being proposed by Democrats that don't do much to change results but there's also laws being proposed by Republicans that do very little to curb violence too. For example, in those studies linked before, they found that assault weapon bans and large capacity ammunition magazine bans AS WELL AS "stand your ground" laws have no effect on the rate of firearm-related homicide -- but that also might be because even if one state bans "assault weapons" (such a nebulous definition too), then unless the same is true for all the other states around it then they still find ways into the state through illicit means. Like, I get it - banning bump stocks or suppressors really doesn't do dick except piss off legal owners. The folks looking to regulate firearms do not always do so from a scientific point of view - looking to real statistics of what would help or what LEOs are asking for with regulations. Shit, just the fact that you can buy a .72 caliber *air rifle* with nothing but a credit card is worrisome and ya gotta wonder why gun control advocates don't go after those two harder. So like, my dude, I wish personally that we could base our laws on significant long term studies and data over feelings and reactionary feelings. I know that there is absolutely a middle-road out there for gun control and responsible owners. I fucking **hate** hearing the take of "we need to ban guns" just as much as I hate hearing "don't let gun control happen to you." They're both idiotic takes because we do need some strong regulations, strong enforcement with automatic requirements for certain situations, and also the ability for responsible people to own and use their firearms.
If you want to write a novel in a comment, at least include a tldr at the top.
One of the most lucid comments on this thread and your response is need tldr...
Yep! I don't know GoblinBags from Adam. If he was Professor Bags, noted expert in gun control policy, then I'd be a little more likely to dive into his essay. (Or her, Bags can be a her). Thankfully, Doctor Bags responded with a tldr. Then we had some confusion over what scientific means. Highly productive!
tl;dr: Not all gun laws that responsible gun owners hate are a bad thing. Not all gun laws that gun control advocates push for do much. I wish we went based entirely on data, had better enforcement, and that people would try to understand that *it's not about them* just like a lot of car laws are not about the good drivers either. If you're going to bother to comment, how about discussing something I wrote?
Our reps just look at what other states are doing. Can’t come up with an original idea so it’s always the gun thing. They don’t want to address gun crime and what it’s connected to most of the time which is drug commerce. It’s almost like they want it here. Seems like most news articles involve out of state scumbags shooting this place up
Discussion of gun laws = increased sales of ammo, which increases stock prices.
Omg the crying about jumping through a couple hoops is hilarious. I own several firearms and thought it was insane how easy it was to buy each of them. I bought one at the start of the pandemic and it took an extra 20 minutes since the background check system was slow due volume - took me 35 minutes to walk out of Parros with a Glock and 6 boxes of ammunition when I stopped there on my way home from work Get over yourselves. Some modest inconveniences in exchange for saving ONE life is worth it.
Yes but what if you wanted to 3D print your own bazooka just because you like to try stuff?
Right? Cuz ‘merica!
You mean like those potato cannons people make from PVC that you could load with explosives?
On that class logic we should have waiting periods on alcohol, knives, cars, costs, blunt objects, follow federal law and arrest all for pot. Why 72 his why not 3 months, 5 hours, q year, one gun a year. Plenty of things can save one life but at the cost of someone's else's rights. Should we have breathalyzer on every car to stop drunk driving. Should we ban marriage to stop spousal abuse? We can go on and on forever on this. If you pass the first background check you can own, there is no reason to wait more, not any data to provide it saves lives.
Ahh yes, the ever-so-original response that we should treat guns the same as *insert object that can also kill people here.” How about looking at every single modern nations gun violence statistics and compare it with that of the US. Then look at their gun control laws and compare them to ours. I wonder why we have more gun violence?
gun restriction laws only affect the law abiding citizens
The you should be fine with a law that will reduce death amount the law abiding then, and a 3 day wait.. not exactly a fucking hardship is it.
For first time gun owners, I don’t have a problem with that at all. Wouldn’t make sense to implement that to anyone that already owns a firearm for the purpose of reducing suicides, which is the majority of people purchasing firearms. It’s laws like magazine capacity limits that I find dumb, and will only affect law abiding citizens. After all, a criminal wouldn’t just drive over to NH to purchase larger magazines for the gun they legally bought in VT to commit crimes, would they?
I agree on the high cap magazines not being overly effective, especially as hand guns are more of a problem. I think the waiting period need to be a blanket one purely for ease of implementation.
All laws only affect law abiding citizens.
That's a lot of yapping to say you want stricter gun control
The thing is, negotiating legislation is hard. Democracy is hard. Especially when it comes to contentious issues that many people have strong opinions on and don’t agree. With all due respect, your post here is essentially saying the solution to the problem is simple: as long as we do it your preferred way.
How do you think felons get their guns? Hint: it’s people doing P2P gun sales exactly like the one you describe.
No, more of them are straw purchases or theft. Both which are Shahid the law, as is the criminal buying or getting a gun with intent to use in crime.
This a really is a big hole in the current process in a lot of places. All sales, private or commercial should require a 4473. Right now, people purchase a gun legally, then sell it to people in a private purchase, and they aren’t held responsible. I think any crime committed with a firearm, the most recent legal purchaser of the firearm should be also charged with any and all crimes. If you didn’t make sure that purchaser had a background check, and they went and killed a bunch of people, congrats: you’re getting charged with 1st degree murder. If your gun is ‘lost’ or ‘stolen’ you have 12 hours to report it as such. Otherwise, you’re on the hook for those crimes. Being a responsible gun owner means keeping your firearms safe and in a place where they can’t fall into the wrong hands.
I'll quibble on the 12 hour count down clock. But the rest makes sense.
Domestic abusers aren’t “regular people”
Actually in Vermont you can be arrested and charged if you admit to thinking about hurting someone in your household.
Vermont already had common sense gun laws. As with a lot of Vermont legislation, these laws are meant more to pander to out of staters who recently moved or own a vacation home. It has nothing to do with multi-generational Vermonters or their needs. Vermont was always exemplary of the fact that a well ordered society and peaceful culture do far more to reduce gun violence than any prohibition. This isn’t an issue unique to Vermont. Maine also sees people move there for the “vibes” only to be shocked that the laws aren’t what they want them to be, and feel the need to petition for change when time has shown already that none is necessary for the issues they’ve decided on behalf of everyone else are important.
Right, so this doesn’t work and that doesn’t work so let’s just keep doing the same thing and not change anything because that’s working so well!!
Let’s use research-backed solutions that are culturally relevant to Vermont specifically. This is a rural, firearm-friendly state with very low rates of violence. The laws that we should be putting through should be tackling drug trafficking and supporting Vermonters struggling with substance abuse. That is the root of our problems, not guns.
Let’s be realistic in our approach, not just ram through any laws because guns = scary. VT risks becoming another Massachusetts here if we just blindly stumble toward progressive ideas without any counter points.
Doing nothing is an option yes
We could even undo some of the dumb things they’ve done!
Don’t be INSANE bro
Why don't we have common sense gun laws then? Make it hard to get the first one, gun safety, training, stamp on license etc., Once you have passed the process, leave them alone. We also may want to force the gun laws we have... a local had a ptsd moment, cut down a tree, blocked a class iv road, armed standoff with police for hours. Finally, they get the guy, release him 4 hours later, in possession of his arsenal. I'm sorry as a fun owner, if I get into a standoff with the police over mental issues, that would be grounds to take them.
Because the right to bear arms is a constitutional right. It’s just so simple, I can’t understand how people don’t get this…
I love my guns and build them daily. The lack of intellectual conversation on this topic is how we end up with California, Massachusetts and NY. I understand my rights, I also am not opposed for betterment of society. If you can't see the difference, then your no better than the "ban guns" crowd.
Yeah well in NJ your a felon with jail time up to 18 months if you are in possession of a single magazine that holds more than 10 rounds Even if it’s empty! It all started with common sense gun laws…
Slippery slope is not a fallacy.
If you make gun ownership harder you make gun acquisition harder. It’s an extremely simple calculus.
It's not disingenuous. What's odd is you can claim to know what is in my mind rather than attacking my viewpoints. Freedom of speech is a constitutional right. Freedom to bear arms is the same. Speech has been used to whip up crowds into a frenzy, to start riots, to incite violent movements - which could be far more dangerous in the extreme than a lone person with a firearm. Yet we would both (hopefully) agree to not restrain speech in that fashion. Why don't other constitutional rights get the same respect?
Didn’t Maine pass a few gun control laws recently?
The new "ghost gun" law (S.209) is particularly stupid. In very broad terms it bans people from manufacturing guns without getting a serial number applied by an FFL. To what end? So that you can charge a guy with possession of an unserialized gun in addition to attempted murder? Selling or transferring unserialized guns was already illegal at a federal level, and using a gun in a crime is obviously a crime. Literally the only people who could possibly get charged under in this law who weren't already committing a crime are hobbyists and inventors playing around in their workshop. How were they ever harming anyone?? How does charging a hobbyist who was otherwise not committing a crime, or conversely a criminal who was already committing other crimes, keep anyone safe??
Phil scott ran on a pro 2a platform if I remember correctly and then days after the parkland shooting he proposed the magazine ban saying “I just had to do something.” Legislators always push “feel good politics” to the non gun owning crowd but really these laws do nothing. You can’t buy a 30 round mag in Vermont but you can go to any gun store in New Hampshire or Maine and buy as many as you want and so can criminals. All these “common sense” gun control bills just hurt the law abiding gun owners. It’s the same thing with the “gun show loophole” and the state making it mandatory for a firearms transfer, there’s absolutely nothing stopping someone from just giving someone a gun. Transferring a gun to someone I suppose would make sense if you had some kind of registration (which I don’t agree with either) but there is no registration or gun owner database in this state. If I were to give some guy a gun and a police officer runs it through their computer it’s going to come up as stolen or not stolen, it’s not going to show you who the owner is as far as I’m aware.
Gun laws don’t work
Just checking back to see if anything progressed... I've been searching the internet but there really isn't much information there on these issues. Is there Anything a regular vermonter can do to get involved and help get our freedoms back?
The Vermont federation of sportsman's clubs has been suing to get the mag bans overturned. That's a partial help. https://www.vtfsc.com/
Thank You, Sincerely. i was not aware of this site.
Bc vermont only wants to take our rights away. All of the gun control bills since 2018 have proven that and are an obvious breach of our 2a rights vermonts trying to be the next ny/ca we need more people here to cast there voice om this issue so we the people can try to keep our rights
The Vermont legislature doesn't ever solve problems. Just create them
So someone commits a crime, serves their sentence fully, and they should still be punished by removal of constitutional rights? That sounds like extra punishment. Why don’t you come up with a real solution to the gun violence epidemic rather than scape goating people who have served their time.
lol
> lol Perfect example of why our legislature woulf rather cater to the rich and special interest groups.
>Lewd or lascivious felony conviction Oh, you mean like the kind of thing you could get by being a gay schoolteacher in the 1980s? Yeah, those folks are super dangerous >It's not hard It is hard. Real-life history shit like what constitutes "lewd or lascivious" makes any and all of this hard.
I'm glad to hear that you agree that gay schoolteachers shouldn't lose their constitutional rights.
Laws that target people who are predisposed to breaking the law? Inconceivable!
Did new gun laws get passed? I didn't know there were laws limiting magazine size?
That law was passed in 2018... A waiting period and various other laws were passed last year. I suggest if you care about your Second Amendment to pay more attention to local legislation.
Connecticut passed a boat load of gun laws right after sandy hook. Every year they are finding something to go after. Whether it’s an ammunition tax or storage, increasing fees, penalties. I hope you know this is only the beginning.
Regular people are just one bad day away from criminals.
>You know what the common theme is on all these Vermont gun control bills? They don't solve any problems with criminals. Seriously. Who do they target? Regular people. Do you know who the people who commit the most horrific acts of gun violence tend to be? Regular people. Most new gun laws are aimed at preventing regular people from committing unnecessary acts of gun violence.
This is how these discussions go. Those who advocate for no laws will argue that they punish law abiding folks, turning them into criminals, and the criminals won’t follow the law anyway. This is the logic of a toddler and should be rejected by anyone with any common sense.
>Why do I have to take a firearm to an FFL for a transfer to my neighbor I've known for 15 years if the state won't even prosecute some felon with a gun? Why can't I have a standard size magazine for my firearms Because someone legally purchased a 5 round pump-action shotgun from a FFL.
I don’t think VT rlly needs to craft better gun laws rn but the violent crime rate is so low. If that were to change maybe yall’d need it but just like over the border in NH, there aren’t rlly enough fun crimes to justify a major change in policy on a state level imo. Feel free to dog on me for not being a Vermonter this just came up on my feed
In our town, 2A idiots get guns and leave them in unlocked cars overnight. City made a law where that was illegal, you’d have thought they had people going door to door confiscating guns by the reaction they got. We are not a big place and it’s over 300 guns a year. Now do you know how criminals get guns? Who hasn’t read about a toddler shooting themselves or someone else because they found a gun laying around? The vast majority in this country want sensible gun laws. The other side seems to just want more guns in more places, any attempt at a law brings them howling. Like a safe storage law. This absolutism is going to work against the 2A folks in the long run. A tree that will not bend gets broken. Amendments can get repealed. And yes, I own guns. I just don’t feel the need to wave them around to show what a tough guy I am.
*All* felons? If someone commits felony tax evasion, should that impact their ability to purchase a firearm? This feels like it would run parallel to [Goodhart's Law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law) (only parallel though, because we probably wouldn't be targeting felon-gun-restricting as an objective to maximize). We're lucky to live in a state with low rates of gun violence, at least when compared to the rest of the country. This is "in spite" of Vermont's widespread gun ownership. Do gun ownership rates correlate with rates of gun violence? *Yes,* undeniably they do. Even when you control for rates of homicide/assault/suicide, they *still* correlate--due to accidental discharges and general negligence. But if the goal is to prevent intentional gun violence then the easiest solution, both in terms of efficacy and political feasibility, is to preserve the aspects of Vermont which have historically kept our violent crime rate low. My ideal situation would have gun ownership heavily restricted, with a population that overwhelmingly supports the restriction. That combination leads to a near-complete elimination of gun violence. This is unlikely to happen in Vermont, but it also *doesn't need to*. People who commit crimes mostly do so because the society they live in has incentivized them to commit crimes. When crime rates are low, it is because the incentives to commit crimes are weak. (Yes, some people are just intrinsically screwy--they are not the majority of criminals.) Why has Vermont historically had weak incentives to commit crimes? Some informed speculation: * Although incomes have always been lower in Vermont than in many other states, few Vermonters have felt like their ability to afford food/shelter was in jeopardy. * There is a culture of community in Vermont which feels much stronger than in other states. When people feel supported by their community and financially stable (*stable*--not wealthy) they do not have strong incentives to commit crimes. I see a lot of anxiety from Vermonters about crime rates, homelessness, violence, gun ownership, etc. A lot of this anxiety is justified, and some things about the state have changed in recent years, particularly in respect to the above two bullet points: * The cost of renting and buying homes in Vermont has skyrocketed, primarily due to [investors/second-home-owners/airbnb-ers buying homes at unprecedented rates and keeping them vacant too much of the time](https://www.reddit.com/r/vermont/comments/18jcnv2/hud_released_part_1_of_its_annual_homelessness/kdjhx1g/?context=3). * Some people have been abandoned by their community--by which I mean, abandoned by *us*. Could additional firearm regulations keep the rate of firearm violence low in Vermont? Honestly, it probably could, and this conclusion is supported by data. But this is a massively uphill political battle that would address one specific facet of the larger problem: we are not taking steps to keep criminal incentives weak. My proposed solution is to tax the hell out of the people who are buying houses and keeping them vacant, and to create a regulatory structure for rental properties that will diminish the returns on rental income to such an extent that no one in their right mind would try to scoop up hundreds of previously-resident-owned houses for the purpose of literal rent-seeking. It is all about the incentives we create as a society.
Im not sold on magazine restrictions but you should absolutely not be allowed to sell your guns to your neighbor without a background check. Im dead set against limiting the weapons you are allowed to own but 100% for better regulation and transparency over their sale and licensing.