Editor’s note: This commentary is by William Sprano, who is a student at Champlain College. He lives in Huntington.
[C]an we all agree that criminals by definition and by actions do not obey the laws, and only people like myself would obey S.31?
I am a lifelong Vermonter. I have served my country both active duty and active reserves so that we could all exercise our rights without undue restrictions. The thing about rights is that they are natural rights granted at birth. Neither the U.S. or the Vermont constitution grants rights, they only reaffirm them and recognize them.
The courts have said that there can be reasonable restrictions upon our rights. For the right of free speech you cannot yell fire, cause false panic or slander someone in person or in the press. For religion you can practice where you like so long as you harm no one in the process. For the right of self-defense, specifically the use of a gun, you cannot, threaten, beat or shoot anyone. Unless it is in defense, of self, or others.
Those are all reasonable, common sense restrictions. This bill contains no reasonable restriction, because common sense says that it is unreasonable to have any law that strips the unconvicted of any rights or that grants specific groups an advantage or exemption versus the rest of the population.
I would like to point out to you that it is already a crime for a felon to obtain a gun by any means on the federal level, making that portion of S.31 redundant and altering the separation of duties between federal and state government. If the feds are responsible for enforcing felons trying to buy guns, then why not force their hand rather than shift the workload, which translates into extra man-hours or new manpower for the state police. This in a time of $100 million deficits in a small state like Vermont is a misuse of resources. Do we not also open ourselves up to jurisdictional problems, and possibly the federal government dropping enforcement altogether costing us even more money we do not have?
Since the Brady Act, a nationwide average of 70,000 failed background checks is done against persons not allowed to own a gun, yet less than 1 percent are investigated and charged. That is where the flaw is! In Vermont we get just enough per year to fall between .0005 percent and .0008 percent of the population. If the feds in Vermont can’t handle this load then they should be forced to increase staff. However, my feelings on criminals are this: If someone has done their time to society and has been released to the streets, they have a right to defend themselves. A free person (not enslaved or in prison) has the right to defend themselves. If a criminal has a gun, than a kitchen knife or soup can will not be much help. Please keep in mind I would never sell a gun to a prohibited person as the laws that stand now prevent that. The point is I do not think anyone free should be prohibited from any means of self-defense.
Do we not also cause harm to our mentally ill by threatening them with loss of rights, rather than encourage them to seek treatment?
Consider if a couple were to seek counseling with this sort of law in effect. Anything either of them say that the counselor considers threatening in any way could be reported to a judge with no chance for the accused to defend the statement or sentiment. With this provision and the threat that it poses to those who might otherwise seek help is massive. I can tell you with certainty that if this type of law passes the effect will be larger numbers of people not seeking counseling that should. Is that really how you address mental health problems by making people fearful of seeking help? Forty years ago a person or couple rarely sought help because of the stigma attached to such things; that stigma is mostly gone, and this will only serve to bring it back.
The problems we face are not guns, the problems are our lack of mental health support, our catch and release criminal process, our problems with drugs, and our problems with poverty.
Background checks are already done at every sale by a federal firearms licensed (FFL) dealer, no matter where they sell the gun, be it in the shop, in the street, at a gun show. The NICS check is also done by an FFL for every gun sold online, or crossing state borders. Each private seller or “unlicensed seller” is already obligated to ask questions such as “are you a prohibited person” and is also obligated to deny any sale they even suspect could be to a prohibited person. Failure to do so can make you a felon yourself.
Let’s compare guns to cars. In Vermont more people die in car accidents than by guns by margins as big as 20:1, yet when a citizen sells a car there is no check to see if the person is a DUI suspect or has a suspended license. Why is that? Simple, it is that way because it is a private transaction just like a gun sale. The seller of the car or the gun can opt out of the sale at any time, for any reason they think is valid.
Another really, really big problem with the background check portion of this bill, is that there are groups that are exempt, this can never happen in the law, because the laws must apply to everyone equally. I am ex-military and have just as much training as any police officer. Consider the Colchester officer; he would be trusted and yet I would not, only one of us turned out to be a criminal.
Domestic abuse is a very large problem nationwide and it needs to be addressed properly. Domestic abuse is a problem directly related to the mental health of the abuser, which in turn affects the abused and those around them. Someone who would commit abuse — and keep in mind about 40 percent of the victims nationwide are men, yet in Vermont the ratio from 2007-2013, the reverse is true. In those years 60 percent of the victims, several of which are dead, were males. So at least in Vermont this is not a women’s issue, it is, however, an issue that affects men more.
Regardless of which sex is the victim the bottom line is that until a person is convicted of a crime they are, as the law states, “innocent until proven guilty.” Just like a drug dealer, rapist or any other form of criminal, if they really are a danger to society we should not be letting them out, and as it stands now in domestic violence cases the judges do have that power, and never seem to use it, they instead issue a piece of paper — a method that will not stop a bat, hammer, knife, car or gun from killing the abused.
The problems we face are not guns, the problems are our lack of mental health support, our catch and release criminal process, our problems with drugs, and our problems with poverty. This bill nor any bill that I have seen addresses the core or root problems in our society. If a criminal or abuser really is a threat then shouldn’t the law make provisions to hold them until they are not a threat?
Criminals get nearly all the guns they use by theft, on the black market or in trade for drugs and other services. Let’s spend our time addressing the core problems by increasing the penalties, let’s address mental health and domestic violence by improving care, and adding the beds we need to treat people. Let’s address the drug problems with treatment, lets address poverty to reduce or remove the desire for that quick buck of an armed robbery.
Start writing laws to punish criminals, because no free man or woman should face such restrictions.
