This commentary is by Bob DePino, vice president of Gun Owners of Vermont.
For years we have said the gun-grabbers have a single end goal in mind, the complete disarmament of the citizens of America. You laughed. We said the gun-grabbers are incrementalists. You laughed. Anti-gun legislators in Vermont have introduced almost 80 bills that restricted the constitutional right to bear arms a piece at a time in the last decade. Nobody is laughing.
Every so often, the gun-grabbers actually name a specific group of people as those that need to be disarmed next. With H.230 the newest group of people so dangerous they need to be disarmed for the good of themselves and others has been officially named on page 10; “members of the LGBTQ+ community.”
The LGBTQ+ community is one of the fastest-growing groups of gun owners in the nation! As gun owners, we welcome these new members to our family. Seeing their name in a bill that promotes the forceful disarmament of gun-owning citizens is alarming. Our anti-gun legislators now perceive them as a threat to personal and public safety!
This is incrementalism and distraction in action. Introduce a bill with a broad general spectrum, ie. “suicide,” add other new gun control like “safe storage” and Extreme Risk Protection Orders (where the government sends armed men to a household to forcibly confiscate a citizen’s firearms without trial or representation), then use the different sections as distraction from the naming of the latest group of gun owners.
As justification, the House legislature used firearm homicides in other states, straw purchasing, and firearm trafficking to neighboring states to prove the need for a suicide bill. Doesn’t make any sense, does it?
An anti-suicide bill would discuss the need for early identification, counseling, therapies and medications, medical training, hotlines, and a litany of other subjects that could get to the root cause of suicide. But no, THOSE bills never made it out of committee!
You see, it’s NOT about suicide. It’s about gun control.
With the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen decision fresh in their minds, the gun control activists in Montpelier are desperately trying to pass any form of gun control in Vermont before all the existing unconstitutional laws are struck down one at a time.
In 2018, S.55 was introduced as an anti-DRUG bill, which the Senate and House struck the entire bill and wrote fourteen pages from the national special interest groups’ wish list of gun control!
H.230 started as a short blurb, a “short form” bill with no substance. It then blossomed into a full NINE PAGES, then after much discussion further expanded into TWELVE PAGES of anti-gun legislation.
When gun owners across the country say the gun-grabbers are “coming for your guns,” H.230 is absolute proof that gun control isn’t about safety, it isn’t about suicide, it isn’t about crime, it isn’t about children. It is about destroying the single constitutional right that protects all others from a tyrannical state government.
Welcome to Vermont, proof positive that the gun grabbers will lie to your face about what they are doing and then come back for more. And more. And more. Until there is nothing left to take.
The Vermont State motto is “Freedom and Unity.” Seems to many people the motto is in need of changing.
“Unity without Freedom,” should be the hallmark of the new one-party state. Joseph Stalin would be proud.
Please contact your senators and tell them, “H.230 should not pass the Senate. Vote NO on H.230.”
think of what the commies will do with this law. For starters, I think they will use it to send a swat team to the homes of people who object to the next laws they pass to take away your rights to live in peace.
Unless you have a Republican senator or representative, contacting a elected official is a waste of your time. They simply don’t care. Vermont’s best days are long gone. I attribute much of the blame to the carpetbaggers.
You are absolutely right. They don’t care at all about what you have to say. All these COMMUNISTS care about is their power.
The only rights they can take from us are the rights we let them have. Gun Owners of Vermont seems to think that they can fight these communists at the legislative level, we can’t. They have a super majority and a eunuch governor that has no veto power and has already conceded to their agenda by supporting their magazine capacity ban, fed flag laws and universal background checks in the past so expect no help from him. GOV seems to think they can go to the hearings in Montpelier and convince these communists to see the error of their ways and change their minds on the unconstitutional legislation they are passing.
(You can’t wake up people pretending to be asleep – Rosanne Barr)
They bought in Dr. John Lott, the most prominent expert on gun control and gun statistics in the United States and let him speak for about 10 or 15 minutes while allowing their “expert witnesses to have twice the time to speak. Gun Owners of Vermont is at best an informative organization. They haven’t stopped one gun control bill in Vermont from passing. What Gun Owners of Vermont should be doing is preaching civil disobedience and total resistance to any form of gun control. Hold seminars at town halls around the state to educate the people about the history of the 2nd Amendment and their rights. Have a petition drive and get signatures from the citizens resistant to gun control. Organize pro 2A rallies all over the state, especially in the towns of the legislators pushing these laws. Make it clear that we will not comply or obey to the best of our ability any unconstitutional laws.
Topher Field: “The only thing that limits the power of our government, is the limit of our obedience”.
The Nazis and Stalinist both started disarming the same way first this group then that group until no one had weapons and then the government killings started. Though I would agree the lgbqrst group are the most unstable with a 40% suicide rate and obvious mental disconnect I’m not in favor of blanket loss of gun rights. Using their analogy they should want to disarm all Democrats too as they have been the majority of mass murders along with the lgbqrst’s… it’s a slippery slope that we shouldn’t get started on. Especially with the brain dead leftist idiots running the government. (same people who have no problem offing the unborn and elderly).
These people need counseling not more attention to feel “special”. Besides isn’t it against the Constitution to bar anyone even them, to get access to weapons? I also think the DRUGS they take may be messing with their minds. Along with the realization they were lied to and manipulated into destroying their bodies. Besides, they will do what ever, how ever they want. I again bring up the biggest school massacre in American history….
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/1927-bombing-remains-americas-deadliest-school-massacre-180963355/
No gun. Like I said they need help and also GOD.
Shame on Vermont for promoting this kind of thing.
I will not comply with any gun laws coming from those crazy liberals.
Shannon,
Yes, it is unconstitutional to infringe on the right to keep and bear arms. The second amendment to the Bill of Rights states, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The “well regulated Militia” refers to the “people” (us), not some standing army or government-regulated agency. This and the other nine amendments that are called the “Bill of Rights” were established to define those areas in which government has absolutely no right to intervene in the citizens’ lives. Unfortunately, our leaders, from the top down, have ignored and violated those rights on too many occasions. So the question remains, “What is being done about it?” Because of this, we, as a state and as a nation, are on a very slippery slope.