[T]he parents of a 23-year-old Vermont man say if the state had a law requiring a waiting period for gun purchases their son who died by suicide late last year would be alive today.
Alyssa and Rob Black of Essex have been pushing that “cooling off” period law since, and Thursday they told their story to the Vermont Senate Judiciary Committee as both opponents and supporters of a proposed waiting period for gun purchases looked on.
The hearing Thursday was the first this legislative session before the committee for a series of firearms-related bills.
This follows a year when lawmakers passed and Gov. Phil Scott signed historic gun restrictions into law in a state that had been known for its hands-off approach to gun control measures.
The hearing Thursday primarily focused on bill S.22. sponsored by Sen. Phil Baruth, D/P-Chittenden. It calls for a 48-hour waiting period before the purchase of a gun and for setting storage requirements for firearms.
A separate bill, H.159, sponsored by Rep. Martin LaLonde, D-South Burlington, proposes establishing a 72-hour waiting period for all firearms sales.
The Blacks started the hearing Thursday by providing emotionally testimony to a packed, but hushed room, in support of establishing a waiting period.
They spoke in detail about the suicide of their son, Andrew, as well as the hours before his death. They say he bought a 9 mm handgun at a local gun shot for $1,000 late on the morning of Dec. 6 and shot and killed himself a few hours later.
“We firmly believe, we absolutely believe, if there had been a waiting period (Andrew) would not have done this,” Alyssa Black told the Senate panel.
The parents said their son had been making both short- and long-term plans in the time before he took his life, from making arrangements for dinner later that evening to securing a lease on a new apartment with plans to move out of his parents’ home a couple weeks later.
The couple told the committee their son, the youngest of three children, always had trouble keeping focused, at times being impulsive, in the sports he enjoyed playing to courses he thrived in at school.
However, they said, it was his strong and enduring interest in chemistry that fueled him to pursue a career in brewing beer. Shortly before his death, Andrew Black had been hired at Lawson’s Finest Liquids, a brewery in Waitsfield.
Andrew was working in the taproom, the parents said, with hopes of learning more about beer brewing and making it his life’s work.
“He was just a typical young man finding his way,” Alyssa Black said of her son.
The parents said they believe they know what prompted their son’s decision to take his life, but to protect others they didn’t want to disclose the specifics of it.
They said he had been going through a lot of life changes, from breaking off a long relationship to starting a new job.
Both said his suicide had to do with something Andrew saw on social media.
“It was as simple as seeing a picture,” Rob Black told the committee. “It put his mind in a place he couldn’t get out of. It was that simple, it was that fast.”
The parents included in their son’s obituary a plea for people to encourage their lawmakers to establish a waiting, or “cooling off,” period for gun purchases, saying such a requirement would have saved their son’s life.
The obituary made state and national headlines.
Rob Black told the committee Thursday that he and his wife have heard from scores of people with stories of suicide of a family member or friend “eerily” similar to their son’s.
“It’s almost like they were telling me Andrew’s story,” the father said.
The parents said they don’t blame the gun store, which they declined to name, for selling a firearm to their son. They said Andrew passed the background check, and a store employee legally sold him a firearm.
A waiting period of 48 or 72 hours, the parents said, would have made all the difference, giving their son time to get out of the “dark hole” he had fallen into.
“Responsible gun owners do not go out and buy a gun on an impulse,” Rob Black said as he advocated for a waiting period. “It would be a nice little speed bump for somebody that was buying it for the wrong reasons.”
If a mandatory waiting period were approved, Vermont would join five other states and the District of Columbia with such provisions, ranging from 24 hours to 10 days, according to the Giffords Law Center.
Backers of gun rights have opposed establishing a waiting period in Vermont. They question the effectiveness of such a provision, adding it could prevent people in immediate need of gun for self-defense the ability to obtain one.
Ed Cutler of Gun Owners of Vermont used the term “dangerous” when describing waiting periods.
“If a woman is being stalked by an abusive husband or any stalker, a waiting period could be the difference between life and death,” he said, adding, “One should not be required to wait two days in order to protect themselves by the best means possible.”
He also spoke of the need for people to have the ability to readily purchase firearms to confront rabid animals in Vermont.
Chris Bradley, president of the Vermont Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs, echoed some of Cutler’s comments, particularly that waiting periods can make it harder for people who need firearms for immediate self-defense to access them.
Asked about the chances of legislation establishing a waiting period for gun purchases in Vermont passing out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Dick Sears, D-Bennington and the panel’s chair, put it at 50/50.
‘I’m listening, I’m open to the discussion,” Sears said. “I’m looking for statistics — do they really work to prevent suicide, or are they just something that is just feel good, but doesn’t have any impact?”
He said a public hearing on the series of proposed gun laws, including the one involving a waiting period, will take place March 12 at Vermont Technical College in Randolph.
Other firearm proposals include bills sponsored by Sen. John Rodgers, D-Essex-Orleans, who last session was among the vocal opponents of gun restrictions that eventually became law, including limits set on magazine size.
Rodgers said his bills are attempts to fix some of the problems caused by those limits, with one of the bills, S.1, allowing larger magazine sizes for shooting competitions held in the state.
Dr. Rebecca Bell, a pediatric critical care physician at the University of Vermont Medical Center and a member of the Vermont Medical Society, spoke Thursday at the hearing in favor of both waiting periods and safe storage requirements to reduce suicide in the state.
Bell talked of the lethality of firearms when it comes to suicide, and how often they are the result impulsive acts. She also told the panel that she couldn’t discuss specific patients she treated or cases she reviewed.
“But,” she said. “I can tell you that they are the story of Andrew Black.”
