U.S.A. — The Vermont Federation of Sportsman’s Clubs (VTFSC) has revealed plans to file a federal challenge to a new state law, which becomes effective this Saturday, July 1, creating a 3-day waiting period on gun purchases.
According to a statement appearing on the VTFSC website, the organization “fought this bill every step of the way, and while we were successful in changing some parts of the bill, the most egregious section…remained untouched.” That section creates a 72-hour waiting period on firearms transactions and transfers, but there is one caveat, according to VTFSC President Chris Bradley of Northfield, who spoke with AmmoLand by telephone.
Another section dealt with so-called “safe storage,” but that has taken on a “negligent storage” complexion, under which people can be held responsible if they leave firearms accessible to children or people who should not have guns and someone is harmed.
Under the caveat mentioned above, Bradley said gun shows will not be affected until July 1, 2024. This will allow those operations a full year to adjust their operations, although it’s not entirely clear how that might happen since gun shows are two-day affairs and the waiting period spans three days. Gun shows are major fund-raising events for local clubs in the state, he said, and this new law is something of a death knell.
“If we can’t kill this law,” he acknowledged, “I believe gun shows (in Vermont) will die.”
WCAX News is reporting that Republican Gov. Phil Scott let H. 230 become law without his signature “in part because he predicted it would be challenged in court.” Perhaps not surprisingly, the news agency described the bill—now known as Act No. 45—as a “gun reform law.” But the VTFSC doesn’t see it as “reform” at all, and that’s why a battle is brewing.
The Federation was founded in 1875, initially as an effort by Vermont outdoorsmen and women to bring back the whitetail deer population. As time passed, especially over the past few years, the Federation’s scope has expanded to address Second Amendment issues. There are currently some 50 separate groups involved in the VTFSC, Bradley noted, representing some 14,000 members and they are fully committed to this battle. Bradley anticipates a lawsuit will be filed sometime in July.
In their statement, the federal notes the Supreme Court’s 2022 Bruen ruling, which now requires lower federal courts to determine Second Amendment challenges to rely on historical context rather than a “means-end” test to determine a law’s constitutionality.
“At the time of our founding,” the statement notes, “there was no law to prevent or delay an honest and law-abiding citizen from immediately purchasing a firearm for any lawful purpose; such laws just didn’t exist; and the State will not be able to show differently.”
A full history of how this legislation advanced may be read here. The bill was described as “An act relating to implementing mechanisms to reduce suicide and community violence.”
WCAX also reported that VTFSC attorneys “are also considering challenging a 2018 law banning high-capacity magazines the governor did support.”
As noted in the VTFSC statement, “(T)here were no laws that prevented or restricted firearms that could shoot more than one shot without re-loading (multi-shot firearms most assuredly did exist at the time of our founding), and our own 2nd Circuit has already ruled that high-capacity magazines are in ‘common use.’ This is an extremely important point since the ‘common use’ test is central to the Heller, McDonald, and Bruen decisions, making it very difficult to see how the 2nd Circuit can do anything but strike down the Mag Ban as well.”
Many in the gun rights movement are more than wary of waiting periods, which never seem to decrease, but instead may go from 72 hours to seven or even ten days, as they have done in Washington State at the far end of the country.
“While Court challenges to Waiting Period laws are already underway in the 10th Circuit (Colorado) and the 9th Circuit (California),” the Federation statement explains, “unless these cases go to (the U.S. Supreme Court) – decisions made in those Courts have no effect on the 2nd Circuit Court, which is the Circuit Court for Vermont. Likewise, there are also challenges in play against high-capacity magazine bans (in CA as well as IL), with Federal District Courts finding that such bans are indeed unconstitutional.”
Bradley said Vermont had enjoyed very little conflict over gun rights for generations but an incident in 2018 marked the beginning of change. In February of that year, a student named Jack Sawyer, then 18, was arrested for plotting a violent attack at Fair Haven Union High School in Rutland County. However, felony charges against the teen were dismissed and he was charged only with misdemeanors. According to a 2019 report in the Valley News, the teen was “adjudicated a Youthful Offender” and placed in an “out-of-state residential treatment facility.”
The last report AmmoLand News could find about Sawyer was from March 2021 in the Rutland Herald, noting he had turned 21 and would have the “youthful offender” status when he turned 22 later that year.
Since the Fair Haven incident, Bradley said anti-gunners in Vermont have been busy. Vermont is the original “Constitutional carry” state, and the gun control crowd has never liked it.
“It is time to push back and push back hard,” the VTFSC statement says. “We have never been on such solid footing for a successful legal challenge to unconstitutional firearms laws as we are now, and just like the Green Mountain Boys, we are rising to meet this threat head on.”
To which Bradley added, “If we don’t push back now and push back hard, what’s to stop them? A message needs to be sent and we are preparing to send that message.”
The Federation has set up a fundraising page to help finance the legal battle ahead. It is dubbed the VTFSC Defense Fund.
There is also a mailing address for donations by traditional mail:
VTFSC Defense Fund
C/O Marcia Marble
14 Stafford Ave
Morrisville VT 05661-8514
About Dave Workman
Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms, and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.
Fighting the gun grabbers is like pushing against a wave of Silly Putty. Every time you think you have pushed it back, it oozes out someplace else
Vermont may be the “original constitutional carry State” but they are also the State that has one socialist/communist and one Democratic to represent them in the U.S. Senate. It is surprising that Vermont’s gun laws are as good as they are.
I made sure yesterday to send them a contribution to fight the infringements imposed by the merry Marxist’s in Montpellier.
Every proposed gun restriction, however “reasonable” it’s promoted, is nothing less than the proverbial camel’s nose under the tent.
But since the enforcement of these bogus anti-gun laws is done through a 100% corrupted legal system, what difference does it really make what the laws say or don’t say?? When the fake judges make “laws” from the bench anyway, ignoring what they don’t like and creating the rest as they go, why is everybody getting their knickers in a twist over it? Is the brainwashing and programing really so deep that almost no one can break free from it? WHERE is anybody’s guarantee that they will actually GET a fair trial to be found, so we can print it… Read more »