Editor’s note: This commentary is by Darby Bradley, of Calais, who is the former president of the Vermont Land Trust.
[W]e owe a debt of gratitude to students in Florida and around the nation for their demand for action on firearm regulation following the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, to Gov. Phil Scott for re-invigorating the debate here in Vermont, and to the Vermont Legislature for enacting S.55 and other sensible legislation on gun safety. These are sensible steps forward, which give me hope that, finally, we are beginning to find the right balance between our Second Amendment rights and public safety. But there is still one essential piece missing: a ban on assault rifles.
Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association is fond of saying: “The only thing that will stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” What he chooses not to say is that a bad guy with a modern assault rifle can cause a lot of carnage before the good guys arrive. He also ignores the fact that a public safety officer or a citizen with a side arm stands little chance against a shooter with an AR-15.
The first school shooting I remember was in Austin, Texas, in 1966. The shooter, who barricaded himself in a tower, had bolt action and pump rifles. In the 90 minutes before the police reached him, he killed 14 people and wounded 31. As shocking as this was to the nation at that time, it stands in contrast to recent shootings where assault rifles were used:
• Sandy Hook School in Newtown, Connecticut (2012): 20 children and six teachers killed in five minutes.
• Orlando, Florida, nightclub (2016): 49 died and 58 wounded in eight to 16 minutes.
• Las Vegas shooting (2017): 58 dead and 422 wounded in 10 minutes.
• Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida (2018): 17 dead and 17 wounded in six minutes. (Statistics from Wikipedia)
The list goes on. I believe in the right of people to bear arms, to hunt and engage in sport shooting. Our land is unposted so that it is available to hunters, and we admire the skill of marksmen who participate in biathlons and similar sporting events. But we don’t need semi-automatic rifles to engage in these pursuits. Just as our freedom of speech doesn’t give us the right to shout “fire” in a crowded theater, we must accept reasonable restraints on our right to own guns in order to protect public safety.
A ban on assault rifles will not save every life from gun violence, nor will it immediately remove these weapons from our streets. But over time, it will reduce the level of carnage that we have witnessed in recent years. The close call we experienced recently in Fair Haven was a warning that it can in fact happen here. I don’t think we should pursue more legislation in 2018, but let’s not wait until Vermont sees an actual tragedy like this before we take action. The students are right: “Enough is enough.”
