Dear Editor,
Recent reporting on H.606, in which Vermont lawmakers narrowly advanced legislation increasing gun restrictions and penalties, requires a critical correction regarding the technical and legal reality of what constitutes a machine gun.
As a lifelong gun owner, veteran, Vermont hunting instructor and an advocate for common-sense approaches to public safety, I believe the integrity of our laws depends on precision, not emotion. Unfortunately, Section 4 of H.606 fails this test by attempting to rewrite definitions already settled by the federal government.
The article quotes proponents suggesting the bill would make it illegal to own “machine guns” or devices that “turn other guns into machine guns.” This is fundamentally misleading. The National Firearms Act has a clear, decades-old definition: A machine gun is a weapon that fires more than one shot with a single function of the trigger.
The devices currently under debate in Montpelier, such as forced reset triggers, do not meet this definition. Federal courts have already grappled with this; the reality is that these devices still require the trigger to be reset and depressed for every subsequent shot fired. Mechanically and legally, they are semiautomatic.
When Vermont lawmakers use the term “machine gun” to describe semiautomatic components — bump stocks, triggers and similar devices — they aren’t just engaging in hyperbole; they are creating a definition gap that puts law-abiding citizens at risk of criminal charges for owning items that are legal under federal standards. The parts they want to ban do not meet the federal definition of a machine gun. If a device converted a firearm into a true machine gun, it would already be strictly regulated or prohibited under the National Firearms Act.
We cannot establish a safer Vermont by passing laws based on technical inaccuracies. By broadening the definition of a machine gun beyond the federal standard, H.606 doesn’t address a safety gap; it creates a trap for law-abiding citizens.
I urge our legislators and the media to stick to the established legal facts. Let’s have a debate on policy, but let’s stop mislabeling the technology to tip the scales.
Kenneth Sekuterski,
Berkshire, Vt.
