[S]en. Dick Sears, D-Bennington, sounded the death knell for universal background checks this year, but not before ripping into a gun rights advocate Wednesday over public comments on the proposed legislation.
The Senate Judiciary chair is known for his blunt style, but his actions became personal — and loud — when Sears began questioning Ed Cutler, president of Gun Owners of Vermont, about remarks Cutler made suggesting his group wouldn’t comply with new gun laws — a quote some considered a veiled threat.
“I’m not afraid of you, and I’m not afraid of your group, OK? Like some in this building!” Sears thundered at Cutler at the conclusion of a heated exchange.
Sears took offense when Cutler said Sears had introduced a gun bill, and Cutler’s attempts to walk that statement back were deluged by an outpouring of anger from the longtime senator, who loudly informed Cutler that he had never introduced a gun bill. Sears later apologized for his outburst.
Despite the uncomfortable scene, gun rights groups appear to have defeated what they find to be the most repugnant provision in S.31, which calls for mandatory background checks for private sales. Sears is considered the swing vote in his committee when it comes to background checks, and it’s something he’s repeatedly said he won’t support.
Sears was already referring to S.31 in the past tense Wednesday: “My letters to my constituents who ask me about what my position is on what was S.31, it’s fairly clear. I told them I don’t support the background check portion, that I may support some form of parallel law, and I had in the past introduced a bill on (FBI database) on the mental health check.”
Gun safety advocates appeared undeterred. Ann Braden of Gun Sense Vermont said her group is taking a long view of this fight, and will continue to support the other two provisions in the bill referenced above by Sears.
Those would require Vermont to report people with mental illness found by a court to be a danger to themselves or others to the FBI background check database. Sears’ committee is waiting to take up that portion until it receives a memo from the Senate Health and Welfare Committee, which spent last week vetting that portion of the bill.
Sears has shifted the Judiciary Committee’s focus to a third provision in the bill that would allow state prosecutors to enforce federal gun laws by mirroring them in Vermont statute. The committee heard from law enforcement officials who favor that provision, and gun rights advocates who oppose it.
“The federal system is a system of selective prosecution, where they try to focus on the baddest of the bad, and get the best bang for the federal taxpayer buck in terms of public safety,” said David Cahill, executive director of the Department of State’s Attorney’s and Sheriff’s.
The flip side of that, Cahill said, is that federal prosecutors are going to decline some cases, which state’s attorneys and local law enforcement might want to pursue. Under current law, local prosecutors have no recourse when that happens.
Evan Hughes, vice president of the Vermont Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs — an affiliate of the National Rifle Association — said using Vermont prosecutorial resources when there’s federal jurisdiction would be wasteful.
“Vermont has limited criminal justice resources, and the citizens and taxpayers want efficient, not redundant, government for their tax dollars,” he said.
If federal law enforcement isn’t dedicating “adequate resources” to prosecuting firearms violations, the “most viable course of action” would be to ask the state’s congressional delegation to step in and call for better enforcement, Hughes said.
