Vermont lawmakers are raising their calls for federal action on gun control after a gunman killed 19 fourth-graders and two adults in a Texas elementary school shooting on Tuesday.
At a hearing of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., noted that it has been nearly a decade since “20 children, six adults were slaughtered — slaughtered — at Sandy Hook Elementary” in Newtown, Connecticut.
Since then, he said, gun control legislation has continually failed to pass Congress.
“Nothing has changed, nothing except more lives lost,” Leahy said.
Tuesday’s mass shooting in the small city of Uvalde came just 10 days after a white gunman targeted a grocery store in a historically Black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York, killing 10 shoppers.
In Vermont, Montpelier police announced Wednesday that they had seized firearms, magazines and ammunition while investigating a student’s “potential threat” to Montpelier High School last week. No arrests have been made in the case.
The U.S. House last year once again passed a bill to expand background checks for gun purchasers, an effort that stalled in the Senate. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Wednesday that he planned to pursue a bipartisan deal on gun legislation in the coming weeks rather than force a vote on the House bill.
U.S. Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., who cosponsored the background check bill in the House and is now running for Leahy’s seat in the Senate, said in a Tuesday interview that “one of the most depressing things that I’ve experienced in Washington is after each one of these horrible shootings, there’s a moment of silence, followed by inaction.”
“There’s no speech anybody can give that’s going to persuade some of the senators that can be more powerful than what just happened in Texas,” Welch said. “How can that not be its own message, a cry for action, to try to take some action in Washington to abate the escalating wave of mass killings?”
Standing in proponents’ way of passing the background check bill is the Senate filibuster, a parliamentary rule that requires 60 votes, rather than a simple majority, to pass major legislation. The filibuster — and two moderate Democratic senators who refuse to change the rules — have kneecapped other major Democratic priorities in recent months, such as voting rights and abortion access legislation.
All three members of Vermont’s congressional delegation have called to change filibuster rules in order to pass priority legislation. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has been a particularly vocal advocate, deriding the two moderate Democrats — Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona — who have blocked the rule change.
“Enough is enough. We must abolish the filibuster and pass gun safety legislation NOW,” Sanders tweeted Wednesday. “No one in America needs an AR-15. How many more children, mothers and fathers need to be murdered in cold blood before the Senate has the guts to ban assault weapons and take on the (National Rifle Association)?”
In the race to replace Welch in Vermont’s lone seat in the U.S. House, three Democratic primary candidates — Senate President Pro Tempore Becca Balint, D-Windham, Lt. Gov. Molly Gray and Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale, D-Chittenden — have called for federal action, including expanding background checks, banning assault weapons and more.
Balint in a Wednesday statement chastised Congress for “refus(ing) to act,” and echoed calls to abolish the filibuster in order to get “sensible gun laws” across the finish line.
“The Senators protecting a centuries old procedural rule — as our children are murdered — are betraying their oath to protect and serve the American people,” Balint said.
At an unrelated press conference Wednesday, Gray asked of congressional Republicans: “What is it going to take?”
“Why are we here? And what are we doing?” she asked. “And my question for Mitch McConnell and Ted Cruz and Kevin McCarthy is: What is it going to take? What is it going to take for real action? How many people — how many kids — have to die? Is it a shooting every day?”
Christina Nolan, who is running as a Republican for Vermont’s open U.S. Senate seat, said in a written statement Wednesday said that she is “open-minded to any serious bipartisan discussions to address these tragedies,” but stopped short of calling for any legislation directly related to gun accessibility.
Instead, she called for proposals “that meaningfully address the mental health crises, isolation, hatred and anger that are fueling these tragic events.”
“There also needs to be a renewed focus on prevention and education efforts, and more funding and training for school resource officers (SRO) and law enforcement to keep our kids safe,” Nolan said. “Now is the time for sober-minded legislating and for Congress to show they can actually work together to get something done. It is not the time for partisan finger pointing.”
Following the 2018 mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, and a foiled school shooting plot in Vermont days later, state lawmakers enacted new gun control measures that expanded background checks to private gun sales, raised the minimum age for purchasers to 21, limited high-capacity magazines and banned bump stocks, which are devices that speed up the firing ability of guns.
But without federal action, state leaders have said, it’s not enough.
“It’s time for us to come together as a nation to better protect the most innocent among us — our kids,” Republican Gov. Phil Scott said Wednesday in a written statement. “In Vermont, we showed you can take meaningful action on common sense gun safety measures to protect our citizens — upholding both their safety and their rights. It’s time for the federal government to take similar action.”
Scott’s spokesperson Jason Maulucci told VTDigger on Wednesday that the governor does not see a need for increased gun control measures at the state level, but that he believes federal action is necessary.
“Rewind four years and Vermont had almost zero gun safety measures. If not for Gov. Scott, we still would not have any,” Maulucci said, referring to Scott signing the 2018 legislation.
Ram Hinsdale in a Wednesday interview noted recent studies have found that guns are now the leading cause of death of children in the United States — “more deadly to children under 18 than cars or drugs, or anything else.”
“We had a responsibility a long time ago to better understand that and treat it like a public safety crisis and a public health crisis,” Ram Hinsdale said. “A society’s main priority is the safety and well-being of its children. And I think that’s why people are feeling despair, because if that’s not what we’re centering with every ounce of our nation’s will, then we truly are lost in solving any other problem.”
Lola Duffort contributed to this report.
