BURLINGTON — Following two recent high-profile mass shootings in California and Colorado, Mayor Miro Weinberger is calling on state lawmakers to enact tougher gun control measures in Vermont.
In a statement issued Friday, Weinberger urged the Legislature to act on gun control charter changes passed overwhelmingly by Burlington voters in 2014. Those measures would ban guns from any establishment with a liquor license, allow police to seize them after domestic abuse incidents and require firearms to be locked at all times.
“Last session, the Legislature proved that meaningful, common sense gun violence reform that keeps guns out of the hands of dangerous people is possible in Vermont,” Weinberger said in the statement.
“The wide range of mass shootings nationwide has proven that catastrophic gun violence can happen anywhere, at any time, in towns and cities of all sizes,” he added.
His administration will renew the call for the Legislature to to take action on Burlington’s proposed charter changes or to “take other meaningful steps to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, drug traffickers, terrorists, and the seriously mentally ill,” Weinberger said.
Last year a House Committee chose not to take up Burlington’s gun related charter changes because they said the measures would likely lead to constitutional challenges and because they felt gun safety measures should be addressed statewide.
The Legislature did pass a hotly debated gun bill last session that makes it a two-year misdemeanor for people with certain violent or drug dealing convictions to possess firearms, mirroring broader federal law that 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 to 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 a firearm reinstated.
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.
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, which they said would burden law-abiding citizens without making people safer.
