Vermont Legislature Passes Sweeping Gun Restrictions - New York Times

Vermont Legislature Passes Sweeping Gun Restrictions
By JESS BIDGOODMARCH 30, 2018

The waiting area before the Sportsmen’s Legislative Mixer on March 13 in Montpelier, Vt. State lawmakers, in the face of opposition from sportsman groups, approved a sweeping package of new gun restrictions on Friday. Credit Christinne Muschi/Reuters
Lawmakers in Vermont, a place long steeped in hunting culture, on Friday approved a sweeping package of new gun restrictions, making the state all but certain to join Florida in passing a raft of new gun control measures after a teenage gunman killed 17 people last month at a high school in Parkland, Fla.

Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican, has vowed to sign the measure. It represents a remarkable departure from the state’s existing gun laws, which are some of the weakest in the country — and an about-face for Mr. Scott, who decided to consider new gun control measures only after a teenager was accused of plotting a school shooting in Vermont in the days after the violence in Parkland.

“No state is immune to the risk of extreme violence,” Mr. Scott said in a statement on Friday, adding, “If we are at a point when our kids are afraid to go to school and parents are afraid to put their kids on a bus, who are we?”

The bill, which passed the Senate, 17 to 13, on Friday after clearing the House earlier in the week, would raise the minimum age to purchase a gun to 21 and ban bump stocks, which are devices that allow semiautomatic rifles to fire more rapidly. It also contains restrictions that go beyond those in the measure signed in Florida, like an expansion of background checks and a limit on the capacity of magazines that can be sold or possessed in the state.

The passage of the bill is likely to be hailed as a victory by activists pushing for tighter gun laws around the nation after the Parkland shootings. It comes less than a week after hundreds of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in protest of mass shootings and gun violence — including 2,500 who squeezed onto the steps of the Capitol in Montpelier.

“I think the message that most members of the Legislature — not all — took is that public opinion is changing in Vermont,” said Eric Davis, an emeritus professor of political science at Middlebury College.

Madison Knoop, a college freshman who organized last weekend’s march in Montpelier, called the bill’s advancement “such a good first start.”

The day after the Parkland shooting, Mr. Scott, a moderate Republican who has kept his distance from President Trump, said he saw no need for new gun laws — a position in line with years of precedent in Vermont, a rural state with a committed population of hunters.

Mr. Scott shifted his stance a day later, after a teenager was arrested and accused of planning a school shooting in Fair Haven, Vt. “Everything should be on the table at this point,” Mr. Scott said.

Lawmakers are expected to approve two more gun control measures next week. One would allow law enforcement officers to remove guns from people considered at risk of harming themselves or others, and the other would allow firearms to be taken from people arrested or cited for domestic assault.

Some Democrats joined Republicans in opposing the measures that advanced on Friday. State Senator Dick Sears Jr., a Democrat, expressed deep unease with the ban on high-capacity magazines, which had been included in the House bill.

And State Senator John Rodgers, a Democrat representing a rural stretch of northern Vermont, mourned a change in the state’s culture before he voted against the bill.

“I think maybe if we pass this bill, maybe it is over, maybe the Vermont I grew up with is over, and it’s changed,” Mr. Rodgers said, according to Vermont Public Radio.

On Saturday afternoon, Recoil magazine and Magpul Industries, which makes firearms accessories, were planning to distribute free 30-round magazines at the State House to show their disdain for the expected law. Magazines of that size that are in residents’ possession before the ban goes into effect would not be subject to the law.

Evan Hughes, vice president of the Vermont Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs, which was opposed to the legislation, said he would be among the crowd on Saturday.

“Our legislators,” he said, “have drastically underestimated the response from the gun-owning community.”