By Alice Dubenetsky

The gun debate is heating up again and Vermont is right in the center of a national conversation about American’s First Amendment rights.

According to the National Association for Gun Rights,  groups such as Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun coalition Everytown For Gun Safety and their in-state partner, Gun Sense Vermont are determined to force gun control on Vermont because our relaxed attitude about guns. Our lack of laws controlling guns and gun owners continues to disprove their distorted theories about the effectiveness of gun control.  A newsletter from NAGR dated March 31 has hit inboxes across the state:

“Whoosh….It scarcely took a week for (Vermont) State Senators to ram anti-gun Senate Bill 141 through the Senate,” says the letter.  “Vermont is the state gun owners across the nation have admired for their historical lack of gun restrictions and the safety and freedom that flows from that hands off approach. But today’s crop of lawmakers seem hell-bent on replacing a system that has worked well for over 200 years….When it comes to gun laws — “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” — applies to Vermont perfectly.”  The newsletter is a call to action, asking Vermonters to contact their legislators and urge them to vote NO on SB 141.

Vermont was also featured as the cover story in the April issue of the National Rifle Associations  magazine America’s First Freedom.  The magazine cover shows a Vermont back road with the words “Gangs of Vermont?”  printed across it.  The article points out a number of facts about gun crime statistics, gun control laws and the countless lies that Gun Sense Vermont has spread about Vermont gun owners and dealers.  It also denounces an attempt to smear Vermonters  with a phony “study” that purportedly proves that Vermont guns are being illegally sold on-line to felons and abusers.  Gun Sense released a report called Hiding in Plain Sight that claimed Vermonters who sell guns through private sales are likely to sell to criminals and the mentally ill.  Gun Sense has advocated to end private gun sales, even between friends and family members, and their report was supposed to back up their assumptions.  And indeed it did, as would any report that was so flagrantly manipulated as to be, in effect, fiction.  Their scheme involved placing fake ads masquerading as “unlicensed private sellers”.  However, their sloppy attempts wound up including ads from licensed firearms dealer Crossfire Arms in Mount Holly, who’s owner is currently exploring legal recourse against Gun Sense for damages.  At its conclusion, the report failed to prove that even a single firearm was purchased illegally on-line. 

An article posted on Bearing Arms detailed the “facts” with which Gun Sense and Everytown plan to begin the process of stripping Vermonters of their Constitutional right to bear arms:

“In its latest report, titled “Hiding in Plain Sight,” Everytown monitored guns for sale on three primary websites and in a sting-like move posted 24 guns for sale on a popular arms website between July 28 and Oct. 9.

Some 169 potential buyers responded. Investigators hired by the group checked criminal backgrounds and found that seven of the 169 were prohibited by law from possessing firearms.

By extrapolating the data, “gun sales transacted on just three websites put an estimated 126 guns into the hands of felons and domestic abusers in Vermont — and likely many more — in this year alone,” the report concluded.”

The report is heavy on estimates and completely devoid of proof that a single gun was actually sold illegally in a private sale.  Not. One.

Last week, the Vermont Senate passed preliminary approval of S.141, “an act relating to the possession of firearms”.  It is expected to win final approval in the Senate this week and then move along to the House, where, as Vermont Watchdog reports “new changes could reignite a passionate fight over gun control.”   This bill eliminated the original intent of the anti-gunners to impose universal background checks on all gun sales, including person to person, friend to friend, relative to relative, but it is the first step toward organizations like Gun Sense Vermont imposing their will upon law abiding Vermonters.

It’s worth revisiting some statistics about guns, Vermont and the law abiding Vermonters who own them.  Vermont has been named the safest state in the nation by the FBI. According to 24/7 Wall Street  “Vermont’s rank as the safest state in the country is due in part by a 19 percent crime decrease in 2013 from 2012 – the largest in the country. Per 100,000 people, there were 115 crimes reported in the state, less than 100 of them being assaults.”   

A recent article in WatchDog.org, claims Vermont is proud to be the “original guns everywhere” state, with an estimated three quarters of Vermont households possessing at least one firearm, according to Gun Owners of Vermont President Ed Cutler.  “As funny as it sounds, being the most liberal state in the union, we also have the highest per capita gun ownership. Near as anybody can tell, 70 to 75 percent of all households in Vermont have firearms,” Cutler said. “Up here, even the liberals have guns.”

Vermont is one of only four states that have no carry laws, either open or concealed.  “The Supreme Court in the state of Vermont has said that the way you carry a weapon, weather concealed or not concealed, is irrelevant. What’s relevant is your intent to commit a violent or felony act,” said Bill Moore of Vermont Traditions Coalition in the same Watchdog article.

Following the liberal line, one might think that all of these dangerously armed Vermonters would be gunning each other down in the streets, but that’s just not the way it works ‘up here’.  Organizations and meddlers like Everytown and Gun Sense should turn their attentions elsewhere.  Maybe they could figure out how to reduce the huge numbers of gun crimes in states and cities that have restrictive gun laws, such as California, and the bloody battlegrounds of Chicago, both of which have suffered under decades of liberal “leadership”. 

Mayor Bloomberg is in search of a problem that doesn’t exist, and it’s hard to imagine why he and his anti-2nd amendment coalitions have turned their attentions to the one state in the nation that doesn’t have an issue with guns -even though we have a whole lot of them.  

Gun Sense doesn’t make Any Sense, except as an effort to exert the anti-gunners will on our free and safe state.  Their intentions vis a vis Vermont need to be cast into the dustbin of bad ideas.