Vermont: When Armed and Safe Is Not Good Enough
Elizabeth Dennis for Jurist reports:
Much to the frustration of gun control advocates who rate Vermont as “F,” the state with the highest per capita gun ownership in the country and virtually no gun restrictions, has a murder rate so low it is “off the charts.” The FBI reported that in 2012 there were just eight murders in Vermont of which only two involved firearms….Any Vermont resident or visitor to Vermont who legally owns a gun can carry it. Various state statutes reinforce this right while local governments cannot pass gun restrictions without the approval of the state legislature….
It is Vermont’s traditional lack of gun restrictions that makes passage of the new firearms statute surprising….Vermont’s new legislation restricts purchase by people who have committed a violent felony and requires state courts to report findings of mental illness, designations that already prohibit those so-named from buying a gun. The rationale given for duplicating the federal requirement is that the US Attorney’s Office does not always have the resources to prosecute these cases.
It’s a shame to see a state with the gun-rights history of Vermont passing legislation simply due to partisan politics. Read the full story at Jurist.org.
