Vermont Democrat opposes more background checks for gun ownership
GruntSgt sends us a link from WatchdogVermont which reports that one Democrat state senator in Vermont, Dick Sears, D-Bennington, figures that Vermont has the proper amount of background checks for legal gun owners that they don’t need anymore;
“If I want to give a neighbor my gun, and I’m not hunting anymore, I shouldn’t have to go to a gun shop in order to do a background check on my neighbor, who I’ve known for 30 years. And if I give my gun to some felon, that’s my own fault, and I can already be held accountable for that under various laws in civil court,” he said.
[…]
“A lot of people don’t realize there’s a section in the Vermont Constitution regarding the ownership of firearms that, as I read it, is much more liberal towards the gun owner than the U.S. Constitution,” Sears said.
“People say, ‘It’s a violation of the Second Amendment.’ I think the 16th Article of the Vermont Constitution also needs to be read in any of these decisions we make.”
The article to which Sears refers is unambiguous: “The people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and the State.”
The article continues that even though Vermont has one of the highest rates of gun ownership in the country, it also has one of the lowest violent crime rates. That 42% of households contain firearms while only 115 people out of a hundred thousand people are victims of crime – about half of the national average.
Of course, the gun grabbers don’t see it that way. They still want to close that so-called “gun show loop hole” and forbid folks from private sales without background checks although less than 1% of criminals admit that’s how they came into possession of the firearms they used in crimes. And that’s why gun grabber Michael Bloomberg is pumping tens of millions of dollars into state campaigns to rein in gun ownership by law abiding Americans.
Category: Guns
While common sense was breaking out in Vermont, idiocy was breaking out in Arizona. Randall Friese decided to go full retard regarding gun sales. Guess he though that copying Washington State’s recently passed initiative(which is being disobeyed all over the state) mandating background checks for private gun sales was such a great idea he’d inflict it on Arizonans.
http://www.guns.com/2015/01/21/arizona-lawmaker-moves-to-end-private-gun-sales-without-background-checks/
dont worry man. these libs that are trying to creep into my home state will be voted out quickly by my republican brothers. You do NOT mess with the second amendment in my state. PERIOD. They need to move their asses back up to hollerado and hippieville Oregon and Washington.
What is Sears’s record on this issue? Is he consistent, or is this a convenient flip-flop?
My household might have a higher percent of firearms than the average Vermonter. I am just trying to boost the economy.
Burlington, Brattleboro, and a few hippie commune towns along the Connecticut River turned VT from conservative to liberal.
There are still a LOT of people in VT (and NH, ME, etc) who can still tell the flatlanders to piss off.
To the extent that a state constitution does not diminish any citizen’s 2nd Amendment right under the US Constitution, this guy is right as rain. Whether he is pandering to a constituency or not, I have no idea. His certainly does not sound like a typical D position on gun ownership, though, so I join with others who suspect tomfoolery is afoot.
The gun show loophole is pseudo registration that’s why the fascist anti constitutional left wants it. Once everyone has to go through govt and ask to do benign things with a firearm it’s only a matter of time until forced confiscation occurs.