Dear Editor,
I read in VTDigger that Gov. Phil Scott says he’d veto S.131, but his reasons to do so make no sense.
Scott says he opposes S.131 because Burlington bar owners can’t enforce it and Burlington would be the only community in the state having such a ban, and because S.131 wouldn’t fix Burlington’s violence problem.
First, police would enforce the new law, just as they enforce any law — e.g., speed limits, stop signs, drunk driving, etc. Bar owners can’t afford metal detectors and don’t want those machines anyway because they send the wrong message to patrons (that violence is so bad in Burlington that metal detectors are needed).
Second, Burlington wants and needs S.131: the voters, the mayor and police chief, and bar owners, for good reasons, especially with Burlington’s disturbing uptick in violence. S.131 isn’t designed to fix Burlington’s citywide violence, just the potential for violence around sensitive places such as bars and restaurants serving alcohol. The homicide on Church Street last August just outside the Red Square Bar shows how important S.131 is.
Furthermore, laws don’t eliminate crime: they set reasonable limits with clear consequences and hold scofflaws accountable. S.131 would make Burlington safer.
Third, Scott opposes S.131 because it’s only Burlington focused and no other town or city in Vermont would ban guns in bars, BUT he’d oppose a statewide ban, too. He’s trying to have his cake and eat it, too, with senseless logic, as if to say, “I don’t support S.131 because it doesn’t go far enough, but even if it did, I’d oppose it, too.”
Again, his view makes no sense. “The good is the enemy of the perfect, but I oppose both.”
I’d like to ask the governor to imagine he’s in a bar relaxing after a stressful day & disturbance erupts. Fists fly, pool cues are snapped over the billiard table and glass scatters across the floor. How would he feel being in there knowing guns were okay in the bar?
Stupid things can happen in bars and, as the tragedy last August shows, they can be fatal when guns are involved. Guns and alcohol are a bad mix.
Scott is wrong to oppose S.131 and his reasons fail to show he cares enough for the safety of Burlington’s citizens, period.
Sincerely,
Bob Williamson (founding member of Gun Sense Vermont)
South Woodstock
