The Vermont Legislature is one step closer to strengthening background checks for those purchasing firearms and banning them from hospitals.
The Senate on Thursday approved the latest version of S.30 by a vote of 21-9 and sent it back to the House with minor changes.
When it first passed the Senate last year, the bill prohibited guns from hospitals and ordered up a study of whether to ban them from the Capitol. But last week, the House added a major new provision closing the “Charleston Loophole.” The change would ensure that a federal criminal background check comes back clean before a firearm is sold.
“This bill has had a long road,” said Sen. Phil Baruth, D/P-Chittenden, who introduced it last year.
The journey isn’t over yet. Because the Senate voted to further amend the bill — by clarifying language some members viewed as ambiguous — it must return to the House for another vote. After that, it would go to Republican Gov. Phil Scott, who suggested at a press conference Tuesday that he might not sign it.
“I don’t believe that we need to change any of our gun laws at this point in time,” he said. “We’ll see what the final bill looks like when it passes.”
Even if Scott vetoed S.30, it could still conceivably become law. The House nearly passed it by a two-thirds majority last week — the threshold necessary to override a veto — and the Senate cleared that hurdle Thursday.
Senate Democrats and Progressives largely supported the bill, while Republican members uniformly opposed it. The only legislators to stray from party lines were Sen. Dick Mazza, D-Grand Isle, and Sen. Bobby Starr, D-Essex/Orleans.
Baruth, a longtime supporter of stricter gun laws, thanked Senate President Pro Tempore Becca Balint, D-Windham, on Thursday for expediting passage of the bill.
“I know Vermonters want sensible gun laws that keep our families safe,” Balint said in a written statement. “S.30 will reduce gun violence, protect victims of domestic violence, and keep guns out of our hospitals.”
In the past two years, according to Rep. William Notte, D-Rutland City, 28 firearms have been sold to Vermonters who failed background checks but were able to obtain them through the Charleston Loophole.
On the Senate floor, a provision of the bill that seeks to protect survivors of domestic violence evoked particular scrutiny.
Existing law allows a judge to take action against an alleged domestic abuser if “there is an immediate danger of further abuse.” That action has in practice included seizing a defendant’s firearms, but the bill would explicitly codify such seizures.
Sen. Dick McCormack, D-Windsor, said he heard from constituents who feared firearms would be seized indefinitely without due process if the bill passed, though he stressed that he supported the bill.
Earlier in the day, in the Senate Judiciary Committee, Chief Superior Judge Thomas Zonay argued S.30 would not grant judges new power to seize firearms through emergency relief from abuse orders. Instead, the bill would merely reaffirm an existing practice.
For Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale, D-Chittenden, the status quo is not enough. She expressed frustration that S.30 does not go further in preventing guns from falling into the hands of vengeful abusers.
“In the gun safety realm, there are a number of things — maybe limitless — which this bill does not address,” Baruth said in response to Ram Hinsdale. “I will personally make it my own agenda to add the senator’s concern for the ongoing part of this year.”
