More than 25 organizations signed on to this commentary.
We, the undersigned group of organizations representing a broad spectrum of Vermonters from all corners of the state, strongly urge you to support S.30, a gun violence prevention bill the Legislature recently sent to your desk.
S.30 will take reasonable, widely supported steps to strengthen existing Vermont laws and keep people safe — something we should all be able to get behind. It will strengthen the foundational protections that you have helped create, and continue to reinforce your legacy as a governor who sets aside partisan divides to work for all Vermonters and build upon our shared values.
One value we undoubtedly all share is a desire to keep our families and communities safe. None of us want to see any Vermonter injured or killed by a gun. You took a critical, courageous step towards protecting Vermonters from gun violence in 2018 when you signed a historic package of gun safety legislation that required background checks for all gun sales and created legal processes to temporarily limit access to firearms by suspected domestic abusers and other people in crisis who are at extreme risk of harming themselves or others.
As you noted at the time, this decision might have disappointed some voters, but the majority of people in our state support common sense gun safety, and it was, and remains, the right decision. When it comes to protecting our state from gun violence, we can work together to pass reasonable gun safety policies that both respect many Vermonters’ tradition of responsible gun ownership and save lives.
Since signing those bills in 2018, you have repeatedly said that you would support improvements to the laws we already have in place to ensure they’re working as intended. Thanks to the hard, dedicated work put in by our leaders in the Legislature — hearing many hours of testimony from Vermonters of all viewpoints — you now have common-sense legislation on your desk that would do exactly that.
S.30 would make a number of changes in Vermont law to help ensure they achieve the objectives you intended when you signed that groundbreaking legislation in 2018.
It would strengthen the background check process by closing the “Charleston Loophole,” codify crucial protections for victims of domestic violence, help protect our hospital staff as they face increased threats resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic, clarify avenues for medical professionals to utilize the Extreme Risk Protection Order process you helped to create, and gather more data on the extreme risk law’s usage so state policymakers can make informed choices to protect Vermonters from gun suicide.
The Charleston Loophole is a gap in federal law that allows gun sales to proceed after three business days even if the buyer hasn’t yet passed a background check. This loophole has allowed at least 28 gun sales to go through to those who legally shouldn’t have been allowed to possess a gun to get their hands on one in Vermont over the past two years — and nine of those guns have yet to be retrieved.
Vermont’s background check system is a key gun safety policy that prevents hundreds of prohibited purchasers — those with dangerous histories — from getting their hands on guns every year. S.30 would ensure that no one can purchase a gun without a completed background check, which would protect vulnerable Vermonters and prevent situations where law enforcement officials are put in danger by having to retrieve a gun from someone who never should have possessed it in the first place.
The bill would also strengthen something that is already common practice in courts across Vermont: the ability of our judges to disarm domestic abusers by ordering a defendant subject to an Emergency Relief From Abuse order to temporarily relinquish their firearms. Half of all homicides in Vermont are domestic violence-related, and more than half of those crimes are committed with firearms.
The days immediately following the filing of a restraining order are extremely dangerous for a person suffering abuse. By affirming the authority of Vermont’s judges to disarm domestic abusers and providing clear guidance in the law, S.30 will help to protect victims and their families during this vulnerable period.
S.30 would also help protect Vermonters who work in hospitals and have faced such challenging circumstances during the Covid-19 pandemic. In testimony before the Legislature, medical professionals and hospital administrators offered resounding support for prohibiting gun possession in hospitals and described threats and intimidation they have faced from emotionally distraught patients.
This bill would clearly establish in law that guns are not permitted in hospitals, and remove any requirement that hospital staff confront an armed person in crisis before the person can be removed from the facility.
While explaining your decision to sign the 2018 bill package, you said, “Today we choose action over inaction; doing something over doing nothing; knowing there will always be more work to do, but today we chose to try.” Those words are as meaningful today as they were then. We continue to be grateful for your support of those laws, and respectfully urge you to choose action over inaction and sign S.30 into law.
AFT Vermont
American Academy of Pediatrics Vermont Chapter
AWARE (Hardwick)
Circle (Barre)
Clarina Howard Nichols Center (Morrisville)
Everytown for Gun Safety
Giffords: Courage to Fight Gun Violence
Gunsense Vermont
HOPE Works (Burlington)
Mosaic (Barre)
New Story Center (Rutland)
Pride Center of Vermont (Burlington)
Project Against Violent Encounters (Bennington)
Safeline Inc. (Chelsea)
Steps to End Domestic Violence (Burlington)
Umbrella (St. Johnsbury)
Vermont Academy of Family Physicians
Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems
Vermont Forensic Nursing Program
Vermont Medical Society
Vermont Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense In America
Vermont-NEA
Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence
Vermont Students Demand Action for Gun Sense In America
Voices Against Violence/Laurie’s House (St. Albans)
WISE of the Upper Valley
