| Bernard - Thursday of this week, Senate Judiciary picked up H.230. As is usual this began with a Legislative Walk-thru followed by testimony from Attorney General Charity Clark; this testimony can be seen at this link. After a quick break, Chief Superior Judge Zonay then gave testimony, followed by the VTFSC and then State's Attorney Rory Thibault; that testimony can be seen at this link. Legislative Counsel basically refuses to give any legal opinion on constitutional issues of H.230, essentially saying 'We Don't Know". Both AG Clark and SA Thibault indicated full support for H.230 while Chief Superior Judge Zonay doesn't take sides. The VTFSC vigorously opposes H.230 as it is rife with constitutional problems, and you can read our testimony here. When H.230 was initially presented as an "anti-suicide" bill, the Waiting Period portion was billed as being useful to stop a person who was intent on suicide from going to a store, purchasing a firearm, and then immediately ending their lives with it. Even though suicides are usually spontaneous acts, it is suggested that a Waiting Period would give a person in crisis time to reconsider their possible action(s). After we pointed out that there were only 2 such situations in Vermont in the past 10 years based on testimony in the House Committee on Health Care as compared to 440,881 firearm sales in Vermont across that same period of time, the bill was amended to suggest that a Waiting Period would also be useful for stopping Straw Purchases. Regarding this aspect, SA Thibault suggested that Vermont had an "epidemic" of firearms being purchased in Vermont but later being found in other states at a crime scene. That did not ring true to us, so we researched it and have found that, as a source of firearms to other states, we are THE SECOND LOWEST IN THE NATION. We also discovered that Vermont has the BEST RECORD IN THE NATION as NOT appearing to have an "epidemic" Straw Purchase problem in all time categories but one, where we are SECOND BEST IN THE NATION. We took that research and turned it into a report, now forwarded to the Committee and SA Thibault, and you can see that report here. Testimony on H.230 will continue next Wednesday, 4/12, at 10:30. If you have not done so already, or even if you have, please use the new Take Action feature of the VTFSC website to contact the Senate about H.230. Thank you for reading; Thank you for your continued support of the VTFSC and our member clubs; and please consider a donation to help us help you defend our rights. 
Best Regards, Vermont Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs
http://www.vtfsc.com/ | 
