Montpelier
Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican, said he intends to sign that bill, as well as two others that introduce new gun control measures.
The historic legislation was the subject of intense debate over the past week in the Democratically controlled Legislature. The House held two marathon sessions and the Senate engaged in contentious committee hearings and spirited floor debate.
The passage on Friday of the sweeping changes to the state’s gun laws comes on the heels of final approval earlier in the day of two separate bills — one in the Senate, the other in the House — that allow police to seize firearms in dangerous situations.
The flurry of legislative action left gun control supporters embracing in the Statehouse lobby on Friday afternoon as gun rights activists fumed and discussed their plans to challenge some of the provisions in court.
Scott, speaking on Friday afternoon to reporters shortly after action by the Senate, said that a foiled school shooting plot in Fair Haven, Vt., and the chilling details in a police affidavit of how a teen allegedly intended to carry it out, showed that Vermont was not immune from such violence.
“It’s changed, we have to acknowledge that,” Scott said. “I read the affidavit and came to the conclusion that the Vermont that I knew, that close-knit community, where nothing of this nature could ever happen, was going to (happen).”
He added that he understood that many Vermonters, including past supporters, would be disappointed with his actions in signing the bills.
Earlier, the Senate voted, 17-13, to “concur” with a House version of S.55, a bill that expands background checks, bans bump stocks, raises the age to buy a gun to 21 and sets limits on the size of magazines — 15 rounds for handguns and 10 for long guns.
The age restriction will exempt law enforcement and military personnel, as well as those who have taken a hunter safety course.
Supporters of the legislation say it will help keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them and reduce the lethality of firearms. Opponents counter that the proposed changes will be ineffective, and make it more difficult for law-abiding Vermonters to obtain guns.
The six senators representing the Upper Valley in Montpelier were evenly split on the gun bill.
State Sens. Alison Clarkson, D-Woodstock, Mark MacDonald, D-Williamstown, and Dick McCormack, D-Bethel, all voted for the measure.
Sens. Alice Nitka, D-Ludlow, Jane Kitchel, D-Danville, and Joe Benning, R-Lyndonville, were opposed.
Senators debated on the floor about how Vermont’s attitudes were changing regarding gun restrictions, for some for the worse, for others for the better.
Sen. John Rodgers, D-Essex-Orleans, who spoke up against the legislation, told his colleagues of growing up a dairy farm in the Northeast Kingdom.
“One of my friends has been saying to himself for years now, ‘It’s over,’ and I kept telling him, ‘I didn’t think it was over, except we were losing, but it’s not over,’ ” he said. “I think maybe if we pass this bill, maybe it is over, maybe the Vermont I grew up in is over and it’s changed.”
Sen. Phil Baruth, D/P-Chittenden, a longtime supporter of expanded background checks, said that proposal faced dim prospects at the start of the session in January.
“Our attitudes are changing and they are changing for a very, very good reason,” he said.
He said while the legislation may not be perfect, if the expanded background checks stop just one shooting, it’s well worth approving.
Sen. Dick Sears, D-Bennington and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who opposed the legislation, said after the vote that he believed it represented a change in Vermont.
“I think this is the first step in gun control in Vermont that I’ve seen in my time here,” he said.
Sears added that the Legislature has taken to steps to “try get guns out of the hands of people that shouldn’t have them,” but hasn’t previously done what he considered “gun control.”
The most contentious matter on Friday dealt with a provision added to the bill in the House regarding the limit on magazine size.
Sears spoke out loudest against that provision, saying, “This thing was written on the fly.”
Sears talked of the difficulty of enforcing such a measure, especially when magazines over the limits that currently are possessed by a person are exempt.
Since they don’t come with dates or serial numbers, he said, it would make it extremely difficult in determining whether a particular magazine was purchased before the limit went into effect or after.
This view also was expressed by the Attorney General’s Office during testimony on the bill, though Attorney General TJ Donovan said he still supported the ban.
President Pro Tem Sen. Tim Ashe, P/D-Chittenden, said that while one provision of that magazine section of the legislation may be difficult to enforce, others won’t be as complicated, such as when someone is observed selling such a device.
He referenced arguments from those opposed to the magazine limit provision that the high-capacity devices can’t be connected to any shooting that has occurred in Vermont.
“That’s always true until someone does use such a device,” Ashe said. “For me, the issue of enforceability has clouded the fact that what we will likely do with this provision is slow or stop the proliferation of high-capacity magazines.”
S.55 initially was meant to reorganize how the state manages seized and abandoned guns, but as a national movement to tackle gun violence has swept through Vermont, amendments have been added, making it the central component of the response from Montpelier.
The Senate Judiciary Committee on Friday morning moved the bill to the Senate with a recommendation to remove the magazine ban. That motion was rejected before senators approved the underlying bill.
The House gave preliminary approval to the bill last Friday and final approval on Tuesday, both in floor sessions that spanned several hours and into the evening.