Vermont’s congressional delegation joined majorities in the U.S. Senate and House this week in supporting what is likely to be the first significant gun safety legislation to become law in decades.
Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., were among 65 Democrats, Republicans and independents on Thursday night to vote for the bill, known as the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. Thirty-three Republicans opposed it.
On Friday afternoon, Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., joined a 234-193 majority in the House to approve the legislation. It now goes to President Joe Biden, who has indicated he would sign the bill into law.
The bill came together after members of both parties sought common ground in the wake of high-profile mass shootings last month in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas.
The resulting legislation would enhance background checks for prospective gun buyers age 18 to 21 — making a review of juvenile records required and allowing 10 days to complete the process. It would incentivize states to pass red flag laws, allotting $750 million in federal funding to help them establish protocols for removing guns from dangerous individuals.
The legislation also aims to close the “boyfriend loophole,” prohibiting gun sales to domestic violence offenders who do not live with their partner. It would provide $300 million over five years to fund school safety initiatives such as school resource officers and mental health training.
Also included in the package is the Stop Illegal Trafficking in Firearms Act of 2021, written and introduced by Leahy. The measure would make it a federal crime to purchase guns on behalf of someone who is prohibited from doing so.
Earlier this month, the U.S. House voted for a separate gun safety package, the Protecting Our Kids Act. That legislation was more aggressive than the compromise reached in the Senate, but it is not expected to reach the Senate floor. Welch, who is running for Leahy’s U.S. Senate seat, was a cosponsor of the Protecting Our Kids Act and has called for further gun safety measures than either bill specifies.
Christina Nolan, a former U.S. attorney who is seeking the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, has expressed her support for the bipartisan agreement. In a statement issued earlier this month before the details of the bill were released, she said she was “encouraged at the negotiations and progress happening in the United States Senate between well-meaning law makers to address the senseless death from recent horrific events.”
Earlier this month, Republican Gov. Phil Scott sent a letter to every member of the U.S. Senate expressing his support for bipartisan gun safety legislation. In the letter, he recalled signing the first significant gun restrictions passed in Vermont in 2018. Those measures raised the legal age to buy firearms from 18 to 21, expanded background checks to private sales and established a version of a red flag law.
“As the number of mass shootings have increased across the country, I have no doubt it was the right thing to do,” Scott wrote in the letter.
