Burlington laws for gun safety bite the dust

MONTPELIER --Gun-safety laws proposed by Burlington were scuttled Thursday by a Vermont legislative committee.

The laws, which a large majority of Burlington voters approved in March 2014, sought to impose safe storage of firearms, prohibit their possession in venues that serve alcohol; and allow police to confiscate weapons that pose imminent risk to domestic abuse victims.

Those rules, which stray from Vermont's relatively lenient gun laws, require approval by the Legislature in the form of a charter change.

Rep. Johanna Cole, D-Burlington, was the only member of the 11-member House Committee on Government Affairs to cast a vote in favor of bringing the proposed charter changes before the full Legislature after a short amendment process.

"Burlingtonians passed these bills wanting better safety," she said.

Speaking before the committee vote, Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger urged its members to honor the municipal vote, and to heed expressions of local control — a process that "respects the abilities of Vermonters to shape their own communities."

Hints surfaced early that the committee was ill-disposed to further the progress of Burlington's charter changes.

Rep. Robert LaClair, R-Barre, questioned if knives — or even hammers — might fall under the Queen City's clampdown.

Summarizing the committee's decision to keep the bill from advancing, Chair Rep. Donna Sweaney, D-Windsor, said Burlington's rules, as written, were too vulnerable to challenge on constitutional grounds, particularly the Second Amendment — interpreted by many as the unfettered right to bear arms.

Sweaney said groups like the National Rifle Association already advocate widely for safe storage of firearms.

As for confiscation of guns, she added, "I would hope that we would have people that would look out for each other in abusive situations."

Gun control, "an issue of this magnitude," Sweaney concluded, should be a statewide issue," rather than regulated on a town-by-town basis.

Other committee members suggested that Burlington attorneys, rather than those retained by the state, should refine the proposals' legal language.

After the vote, Burlington City Attorney Eileen Blackwood politely disagreed.

"We drafted the ordinances to address concerns that were raised today," Blackwood said, adding that federal courts have been increasingly willing to hear arguments in favor of municipal gun regulation.

"The Second Amendment is in flux," she continued. "The way you figure out what it means when you pass new laws — is that they get tested in court."

Legislative counsel Erik FitzPatrick, while briefing the committee, confirmed that firearm-related judicial decisions have been "changing very, very rapidly" in the past seven years — and that federal courts have become "less deferential" to claims that gun possession is an inalienable right, exempt from regulation.

FitzPatrick and co-counsel BetsyAnnWrask outlined aspects of Burlington's proposed laws that would almost certainly be litigated:

Confiscation of a firearm in a domestic-abuse incident relies on a police officer's determination of "probable cause" — a low burden of proof — and would likely be challenged as an erosion of due process of law.

The law's requirement that a firearm be safely stored or locked is waived if the weapon remains under the owner's "immediate possession or control" — a caveat that is left to broad interpretation.

The prohibition against firearm possession in establishments with liquor licenses does not clarify guidelines for residential apartments above a bar. And the ban's inclusion of parking lots "under the ownership or control" of the business offers no guidance on how shared parking lots would be regulated.

Burlington attorneys would have gladly worked in concert with the state to clarify those issues, Mayor Weinberger said after the vote, but "It's my sense that the committee doesn't have the appetite to take them up in a detailed way."

It's a view shared by Rep. Jean O'Sullivan, D-Burlington, a co-sponsor of the House bills that incorporate the city's proposed changes.

She explained: Earlier this month, both houses of the Legislature voted to approve a bill that would restrict gun rights for convicted criminals, and report to a federal background-check database the names of people judged by a court to need mental health treatment.

"It seems that the legislature has had their fill of guns for one year," O'Sullivan said.

Contact Joel Banner Baird at (802) 660-1843 or joelbaird@FreePressMedia.com

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