[T]he Senate has approved the House version of a bill designed to keep guns away from dangerous criminals and people with severe mental illness.
The bill, S.141, would make it a crime for people convicted of certain violent or drug-related offenses to possess a firearm, and would require Vermont to report people with mental illness found by a court to be a danger to themselves or others to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).
The legislation is now headed to the governor’s desk. Gov. Peter Shumlin said at the start of the session that Vermont doesn’t need to update its gun laws, but his position has softened in recent weeks.
A Shumlin spokesman said in a statement Thursday, “The governor recognizes that the bill is a shadow of the original proposal he objected to and now goes a long way toward meeting reasonable concerns on both sides of the debate. But, as usual, he will review the final bill after we have received it.”
Gun rights groups have vigorously opposed the legislation, particularly an earlier version of the bill that would have required background checks for private gun sales. More recently, they voiced concerns about the legal process for people with mental illness to petition the court for their gun rights to be reinstated.
Proponents say S.141 would reduce gun violence by keeping firearms away from domestic abusers, drug dealers and other violent criminals, as well as people who are mentally unstable.