This commentary is by Chris Bradley, of Northfield. He is a registered lobbyist with the Vermont secretary of state on behalf of the Vermont Federation of Sportsman’s Clubs, where he is president and executive director.
When we consider Vermont, we must recognize that the vast majority of Vermont is rural.
We also must recognize that Vermont has a chronic issue with the proper staffing of law enforcement, such that Vermont typically has one of the lowest Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) law enforcement officers per 100,000 residents in the nation. For 2019 we were the absolute lowest.
Chris Bradley, president and executive director of the Vermont Federation of Sportsman’s Clubs
Today approximately 200 Vermont towns rely solely on the Vermont State Police (VSP) to provide law enforcement coverage, with that equating to approximately 50% of Vermont’s population and approximately 90% of Vermont’s land mass. Further, VSP’s coverage is not 24 hours. By necessity the VSP only runs two 10-hour shifts, leaving 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. with “on call” coverage only. Finally: VSP is very concernedly short-staffed, as are many police departments.
Depending on when a crime happens, what may be happening at the same time elsewhere, not to mention the weather, it could be quite a long time before law enforcement can get to the scene of a Vermont crime.
A great many Vermonters know that not only can they be the first person affected by crime, they also know that they will likely be their own first responder. A high percentage of Vermont homes have firearms in them, and the vast, vast majority of the Vermonters who own those firearms know how to safely and competently handle them. Combined, these two facts go a long way to explain why Vermont is consistently one of the safest states in the nation when it comes to both violent crime and property crime.
The logic there is pretty simple. Criminals want easy victims; they do not want armed adversaries. Yet there are those who will ridicule the notion that a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun. Given that we cannot seem to stop bad guys from getting guns, and we have certainly tried hard at that goal, I suggest that enacting laws that force good guys to be disarmed is simply providing for more easy victims. And aren’t those people really saying: “A bad guy with a gun should always get their way?”
We have all been inundated with the media stories where completely innocent people become victims of gun violence, and there appears to be no shortage of people who are intent on committing such heinous and unconscionable acts.
But, how often do you hear of lives being saved, or crime being stopped cold, because of an honest citizen being armed? Just about never — which could lead someone to believe that defensive use almost never happens.
When Barack Obama was president, he issued a number of executive orders, one of which directed the Centers of Disease Control (CDC) to study the causes and prevention of gun violence. That study was then sub-contracted to the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council – two highly respected research organizations.
The resulting study found that the defensive use of firearms was a “common occurrence.” The study states: “Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year, in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008.”
We can address gun violence by strictly enforcing the firearm laws already on the books, laws which dictate strict sentences for when a crime is committed with a gun. We need to retain cash bail, not allow criminals to simply walk free. Further, we need our legal system to aggressively prosecute these crimes, not allow them to be pled away because they are purposefully harsh.
We can do these things today, right now, and we will see measurable results.
gunwatch.blogspot.com is an excellent source that catalogs defensive gun uses by date.
The communists have a three part scheme to bring communism to the USA.
1. Coddle the criminals. This has already been accomplished with bail reform, vilifying the police and Soros influenced DAs.
2. Disarm the law abiding citizens which will give the criminals an endless supply of victims.
3. The result will be a crisis which can only be managed by a totalitarian government.
We’re well on our way to this scenario. Hide in the bushes and watch.
over 80% of gun homicides are committed with second-hand guns, some 11,000 a year. “Second-hand guns” are those which have been lost, sold, pawned and not redeemed, lent, given away or left unsecured (and consequently stolen) by the original purchaser.
This amounts to treating a firearm like just another household appliance. “Lawnmower’s missing? Well, we’ll just get another one.”
These are owners who obviously did not kill 11,000 criminals as a result of buying a firearm. Neither did they ever consider that the power endowed to them ought to be safeguarded. Instead, they behaved in a way that allowed their weapon to pass into unworthy hands. These people are not of King Arthur rank; he never lent Excalibur to anybody.
We can see 11,000 innocent lives a year simply by having a law that says, “If you buy this weapon, you own it forever. If anybody else ever uses it for a crime, you will be held equally liable with the criminal.” And the NRA can change their motto to, “You can have my gun when you unglue it from my cold, dead hands.”
Re: “..over 80% of gun homicides are committed with second-hand guns, some 11,000 a year.”
So what?
First, a ‘second-hand’ gun is any gun that isn’t brand new.
Second: Mr. Bradly’s article is primarily directed to Vermont’s circumstances. Not Chicago. Not St. Louis. Not New Orleans, or LA, or Baltimore, etc., etc.. To imply that over 80% of gun homicides in Vermont are committed with second-hand guns is meaningless. After all, there were 18 gun-related homicides in Vermont last year and I find no data indicating that only 4 of those homicides were committed with a new gun.
Further, the assumption that any Vermont gun owner never considered that the power endowed to them ought to be safeguarded is pure speculation and hasn’t been shown by any data I’ve seen. Nor is there any data showing that any specific number of Vermont gun owners allowed their weapon to pass into unworthy hands.
And I guess we should ignore the fact that 21 million (21,000,000) guns were lawfully purchased in the U.S. last year. Or that 80% of gun related deaths are gang related.
Well,it’s time that Vermont showed the rest of the nation how to judge the ability of anyone to be a responsible gun owner. Cars aren’t meant to kill, but we don’t let 10-year-olds drive them. Gun deaths through irresponsible ownership are just the tip of the iceberg. Tens of thousands wind up shooting themselves, others and apartment ceilings and walls because they treat a weapon like another household appliance. We need gun owners to see themselves as a priesthood, not a bunch of schlubs with a little extra money.
Here’s a bit more about the CDC study:
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/cdc-removed-stats-defensive-gun-use-pressure-gun-control-activists-report
The study is still available from Harvard and remains pertinent, but it was removed from the CDC website under pressure from those opposed to what it said as it simply does not feed their narrative.
Regards
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/cdc-removed-stats-defensive-gun-use-pressure-gun-control-activists-report