[T]he Vermont House gave final approval to a gun bill Friday that proponents say will keep firearms out of the hands of many violent felons and from certain people with severe mental illness.
S.141 passed 80-62. If the governor signs the bill, Vermont will be the last state in the nation to make gun possession by certain violent criminals a state-level crime.
Final approval followed a short recess to address a technical amendment and a series of personal stories from lawmakers seeking to prevent gun violence, including Rep. Sam Young, D-Glover, whose mentally ill brother committed suicide with a gun.
Opponents said the bill was an infringement of Second Amendment rights spawned by millions of dollars of alleged outside funding from special interest groups backed by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Nineteen lawmakers explained their final votes on the floor.
But powerful personal testimony from key Democrats overwhelmed the floor Friday morning, bringing some lawmakers to tears.
Young quipped that his constituents in the Northeast Kingdom like guns and dislike government.
The room fell completely silent as Young told the story of how he once signed papers to commit his brother who had paranoid schizophrenia to a psychiatric hospital.
He said his 23-year-old brother disappeared in 2004, and the family eventually learned that he had gone to a neighboring town to buy a gun before committing suicide. Young said his brother’s body was later identified by dental records.
“If he was in that database, nobody would have sold him that gun,” he said. “This was a man who was brilliant, but he just couldn’t handle the stress of it all.
“We’re talking about this in theory without a face and a name,” Young said. “Well, his name was Timothy James Young, and he looked a lot like me. Maybe that’s one life we could have saved.”
Rep. Mariana Gamache, R-St. Albans, said she would vote “no” because “this is not legislation advanced by the people of Vermont.”
“Most Vermonters, in a time when the state is facing a cost of living crisis and struggling to provide economic opportunities, may be wondering why the legislature is wasting time wrestling over legislation that will impede their constitutional right. The answer is simple. Tens of thousands of dollars in special interest money from outside of Vermont has poured into campaigns,
lobbyists and in marketing efforts designed to scare constituents into believing we have a gun violence problem in Vermont.”
Many representatives who oppose the gun control bill have touted Vermont’s public safety record and attribute the state’s low crime rate to gun ownership.
Other opponents cited tradition.
Rep. Thomas Terenzini, R-Rutland, referred to the state Constitution. “‘The people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and the State’ are words Vermonters have lived by since July 8, 1977. Now, nearly two and a half centuries later, this founding principle is being challenged by S.141. Vermonters, first in our own state constitution, and later in the American Bill of Rights, have always understood and preserved our right to protect ourselves without infringement from Government – local, state or federal. I vote “NO” to stand up for nearly 250 years of tradition and to protect the right to bear arms for future generations of Vermonters.”
Rep. Joseph “Chip” Troiano, D-East Hardwick, explained the proposed law from a public defender’s perspective, and talked about the mental health challenges he suffered after fighting in Vietnam.
“It’s a well-known fact that this bill does not prohibit veterans from seeking help for post-traumatic stress disorder,” Troiano said. “I sought treatment not to get my right to own guns back, but to make myself whole. Owning a firearm means nothing. You have to want to get better because you want to get better.”
He said the proposed law would report people to the National Instant Criminal Background Check database who are determined by a court to be “mentally insane” at the time of a crime, and that many people who fall into that category suffer from “serious cognitive deficiencies” or “mental retardation.”
Rep. Kiah Morris, D-Bennington, said the proposed law would help keep guns away from domestic abusers and support lawmakers who want to reduce violent crime. Morris said one of the messages of the bill was for domestic abusers: “If you choose to terrorize your families with abuse, with violence, then there are consequences.”
Details of S.141
The Senate passed an earlier version of S.141 in a 20-8 vote last month. The Senate must approve the House changes or a conference committee will be appointed to hammer out the details.
The House version eliminates the 18-month waiting period for people who have recovered from severe mental illness to petition to regain their gun ownership rights.
The Senate Judiciary Committee had proposed a five-year waiting period before reducing the requirement to 18 months.
The House Judiciary Committee eliminated the waiting period and considered a higher standard of evidence, but switched back to the lowest evidence threshold — a preponderance of evidence — in the final bill.
The bill makes possession of a gun a state-level misdemeanor crime for people convicted of aggravated stalking; aggravated domestic assault in the first or second degree; murder; manslaughter; assault and robbery with a dangerous weapon; unlawful restraint; kidnapping; and several other “listed crimes.”
The bill requires the state’s Superior Court administrator to report all people who are judged to be in need of mental health treatment (under the same section of state law that allows people to “plead insanity”) to the federal background check system.
The Vermont Department of Mental Health would report people who are issued treatment orders, including hospitalization orders, to the court administrator starting Oct. 1. The administrator would then send those reports to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.
Reports would be private, exempt from public records requests,and clearly say the person was reported to the system in accordance with federal law.
Federal law bans firearm possession by anyone convicted of a crime with a sentence exceeding one year, or anyone who has been “adjudicated as a mental defective” or “committed to a mental institution.”
The sections of the bill regarding violent felons and establishing a suicide-prevention “Gun Shop Project” for Vermont go into effect July 1. The reporting requirements start Oct. 1.