Gov. Peter Shumlin has signed legislation designed to keep guns away from dangerous criminals and people with severe mental illness.
The governor has said that he doesn’t believe Vermont would benefit from new gun laws, but Friday he called the bill he signed a “shadow” of what was originally introduced, and said that it “makes common sense changes.”
An earlier version of the legislation would have required universal background checks for all private sales or transfers, except those between immediate family members. That provision was controversial and drew the ire of pro-gun groups who rallied their supporters to oppose the provision.
“Vermonters know that I feel that Vermont’s gun laws make sense for our state,” Shumlin said in a statement issued Friday afternoon. “We in Vermont have a culture of using guns to care for and manage our natural resources in a respectful way that has served us well. The bill delivered to me today is a shadow of the legislation that I objected to at the beginning of the legislative session. It makes common sense changes, similar to the ones that I supported to prohibit guns on school grounds, and that is why I signed it.”
The bill Shumlin signed, S.141, makes it a two-year misdemeanor for people with certain violent or drug dealing convictions to possess firearms, mirroring broader federal law that a carries a felony charge. The purpose is to allow state law enforcement officers to prosecute cases federal officials turn down, but which may still present a danger to the public.
It also requires people with mental illness found by a court be a danger to themselves or others be reported to the FBI database of people prohibited from owning guns. The provision includes a legal process for people to have their right to have firearms reinstated.
The only person present at the signing was Rep. Sam Young, D-Glover, a proponent of the legislation. Young gave emotional testimony on the House floor last month in support of S.141.
During the House debate on the bill, Young told colleagues that his 23-year-old brother who had paranoid schizophrenia 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.”
Proponents say the new law will reduce gun violence by keeping firearms away from domestic abusers, drug dealers and other violent criminals, as well as people who are mentally unstable.
“We celebrate this final step in the passage of the gun violence prevention bill, which takes real strides in the fight to keep guns out of the wrong hands,” Ann Braden, president of Gun Sense Vermont, said in a statement. “This proves that respect for the second amendment can go hand-in-hand with gun violence prevention, and that lawmakers don’t have to choose one over the other.”
