Vermont is going Down

BigDinVT said:

This time we didn't. Gov Scott was the first Republican Governor in many years. Now he's stabbed us in the back.

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I don't consider six years to be 'many.' Do you? Jim Douglas left office in January 2011. Phil Scott was sworn in January 2017.

Also, those six years? Peter Shumlin, a Democrat, had an A+ rating from the NRA. He signed into law the bill decriminalizing suppressors.

Let's keep the tribal horse manure out of this.

Couple a years ago the elected Virginia AG and Gov had gotten a lot of Bloomberg campaign money. Then the AG announced he was pulling riciprocity on handgun permits for several states including Tennessee. My Tennessee carry permit would no longer be recognized. I live near the TN/VA state line and getting from point A to point B in one state often requires crossing state line into the other. There was a huge outcry and the Gov reversed the AG announcement and VA went Tennessee on riciprocity: any valid state permit would be recognized. Bloomberg was furious and Everytown ran ads denouncing the Governor. Bloomberg spent millions to get the Dem AG and Gov elected and acted like he owned them. How dare they!

Question: how much Bloomberg money did the Vermont Governor get in his campaign?

LemmyCaution said:

I don't consider six years to be 'many.' Do you?

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If I said to an abolitionist I had six guns they'd say I had six too MANY.

Thanks for keeping it classy.

BigDinVT said:

If I said to an abolitionist I had six guns they'd say I had six too MANY.

Thanks for keeping it classy.

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Unless that abolitionist was John Brown, maybe…

But when the Democrat legalizes suppressors for the first time since the Great Depression and the republican signs a UBC bill and standard capacity magazine ban, you pretty much know you're in Vermont.

Sorry to be so déclassé as to ruin a good partisan bender with, you know, facts.

Vermont always impressed me with its ability to remain free and not tied up in partisan politics.
It remained free in many ways and was one of the only states that had realistic third party candidates.
It also was one of the few places that frequently had Democrat legislatures that were pro-gun and didn't cave to the national party to 'compromise'.
At least while still in the state.

To keep with doing things in an untraditional manner a Republican has now passed the most significant anti-gun changes in the state in decades.

Vermont was one of the few states you could trust. The 'Don't tread on me' motto from the time of the founders was always a cool touch and fit in nicely with the firearm freedoms. Maybe that will need replacing soon too as it goes the way of MA which was once where freedom reigned and the revolution started with statues and historical locations dedicated to that time, and is now...
I never would have expected a flip from Vermont before New Hampshire, or Maine. It seemed like the most freedom loving of all of that area.

Zoogster said:

Maybe that will need replacing soon too as it goes the way of MA which was once where freedom reigned and the revolution started and is now...

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One things that's always struck me, however, is that the wording of the 2A that has perennially given people fits trying to interpret is that the Massachusetts state constitution, from its inception, has always treated the right to bear arms as tied to communal defense, rather than an individual right to self-defense. It would not surprise me at all to learn that the drafting of the 2A was a mess of compromises trying to get all the states on board to ratify it, from PA which explicitly guarantees the RKBA for self-defense, as well as the common defense, to MA, which only guarantees it for common defense, which arguably means that they're talking about the People (Read: The Commonwealth), as opposed to just people, that is guaranteed the right. This is in keeping with much of the wording of the MA constitution, which seems predominantly concerned with the rights of the Commonwealth, and less so with a single one of its inhabitants.

(As a sidebar, the 1A must have given fits, as well, because the MA constitution also originally required religious observance and individual financial contribution to the church, deemed a pillar of the commonwealth)

Vermont's constitution was largely cribbed from Pennsylvania's (it was a good one to crib from, having been written by B Franklin, T Paine, and other stalwarts of individual liberty), and a fitting one for Vermont, given its very different colonial history from the surrounding states.

Vermont was not one of the original 13 states. It was admitted to the Union in 1791, the same year the 2nd Amendment was ratified. (Vermont admitted in March, the 2nd Amendment ratified in December.)

That's important because Vermont's constitutional provision was adopted without reference to the federal 2nd Amendment.

nhcruffler wrote:
Our own State AT says the possession would be very difficult or impossible to enforce.

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"AT"?

They graciously will allow us to keep the ones we have so proving that I bought that mag before the ban would be next to impossible.

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What does the statute actually say?

Are all large capacity magazines grandfathered and may be freely traded as well as merely possessed? Or is possession of what you have on the day the law takes effect all that is allowed and you cannot sell or trade them? What does the statute say about who bears the burden of proving that the magazine is pre-ban? If the burden is on you as the owner, then you're the one faced with the impossibility.

The text of Vermont S.55 as enacted:
https://legislature.vermont.gov/assets/Documents/2018/Docs/ACTS/ACT094/ACT094 As Enacted.pdf
... the text regarding "regular citizens keeping their hi-cap magazines" seems to be: "The prohibition on possession of large capacity ammunition feeding devices established by subsection (a) of this section shall not apply to a large capacity ammunition feeding device lawfully possessed on or before the
effective date of this section." I don't see anything about how to prove when you first possessed such an item.

So, what is to stop a person from traveling to another state and purchasing a couple so-called hi-cap mags and bringing them home? I believe Colorado did the same and I know a lot of people who used to travel over to UT and purchase magazines to take them home.

Theoretically, nothing. The burden of proof is on the state. That’s why the AG publicly said it’s completely unenforceable.

https://vtdigger.org/2018/03/29/attorney-general-walks-back-offices-opposition-magazine-limit/

The quote from Dick Sears scares me the most.

“I have a feeling that if this passes we’ll be back here next year fixing it”

https://www.facebook.com/share.php?...walks-back-offices-opposition-magazine-limit/

hdwhit said:

What does the statute actually say?

Are all large capacity magazines grandfathered and may be freely traded as well as merely possessed? Or is possession of what you have on the day the law takes effect all that is allowed and you cannot sell or trade them? What does the statute say about who bears the burden of proving that the magazine is pre-ban? If the burden is on you as the owner, then you're the one faced with the impossibility.

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It looks like possession is grandfathered but transfer is not (except for dealers up to 10/1/18). The relevant part of the law:

If transfer had been included in (c)(1), then you'd have language tracking that of the federal Hughes Amendment (18 U.S.C. section 922(o)(2)(B)), meaning that hi-cap magazines lawfully possessed by anyone, anywhere (within the United States) on the date of enactment would be grandfathered. Breaking it out the way they did means that the individual is limited to what he, himself, owned on the date of enactment, or purchased from a dealer by 10/1/18.

Enforceability is another issue entirely. For the reasons discussed earlier in this thread, this thing is unenforceable.

Does this cover inheritance? Can folks leave them to their children or is the expectation that when I die they become contraband for my heirs?

vtsteve said:

Does this cover inheritance? Can folks leave them to their children or is the expectation that when I die they become contraband for my heirs?

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Inheritance is a transfer. It doesn't look like this would qualify for exemption / grandfathering under the law as written. But since magazines are not serialized, who's to know? But children born after the effective date of this act are completely out of luck, since there is no way they could have "lawfully possessed" them on the effective date.

You could have set up a trust to insure the passage of these items to the next generation, but it is probably too late to do that now. Setting up a trust for magazines seems like overkill, since this law really isn't enforceable anyway.

Lobby for the repeal of this travesty. Point out all the ridiculous situations engendered by it.

Yeah, that’s what I thought. I transferred them all into my NFA trust last week just in case.

Not even from my cold dead hands.

California grandfathered them in and then banned grandfathered magazines 16 years later.
It was also unenforceable, but it became a good divide and conquer strategy to placate opposition when it was grandfathered in to start.

When you divide the community less and less people care about people that have things they never can, and the population grows, people die or move, and the grandfathered crowd is always an easy target in a decade or so.

RETG said:

So, what is to stop a person from traveling to another state and purchasing a couple so-called hi-cap mags and bringing them home? I believe Colorado did the same and I know a lot of people who used to travel over to UT and purchase magazines to take them home.

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They still do.

RETG said:

So, what is to stop a person from traveling to another state and purchasing a couple so-called hi-cap mags and bringing them home? I believe Colorado did the same and I know a lot of people who used to travel over to UT and purchase magazines to take them home.

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Then they start working on that next state over, and the one after that, until only Wyoming and Arizona have standard capacity magazines left, and people have to drive in from Maine...That would be the theory, but the sheer number of common standard capacity magazines available is staggering.

Yet another example that our elected officials are blithering freakin' idiots who know not the first thing about firearms. Vermont is a beautiful state and I pray the good citizens make their politicians pay.

If this can happen in Vermont, I fear deeply for my current home state, Washington, where we have even bigger idiots in office, and the liberals in only one county decide what happens in the rest of the state.

RETG said:

So, what is to stop a person from traveling to another state and purchasing a couple so-called hi-cap mags and bringing them home?

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Let me give you a worst-case example. Virginia has a state monopoly on hard liquor -- you have to buy your booze at state-run stores, and they add a hefty tax. So, some people have the idea to drive over to nearby Maryland or D.C. -- where liquor sales are in private stores, and the tax is lower -- and stock up at the lower prices. The Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) enforcers are known to stake out large liquor stores in Maryland and D.C., looking for Virginia license plates in the parking lots. If they spot one, they follow the person back to Virginia. As soon as he crosses the border, they pull him over. Not only the liquor, but the vehicle used to transport it, is civilly forfeited for tax evasion. After a few high-profile cases in which people have lost their BMW's or Mercedeses, they think twice about trying to pull this ploy.

I can imagine some zealous enforcers in Vermont staking out gun stores or gun shows in New Hampshire, looking for Vermont purchasers of hi-cap magazines. They follow them home, and throw the book at them. All it would take would be a few well-publicized cases to put a stop to the practice. Or at least it would be done much more surreptitiously.

So about the bump stock ban included in s.55.

They’re demanding that folks turn them in without any compensation. These legally purchased devices are going for $1k plus on the open market right now. Doesn’t this amount to a government “taking” of property?

I’m just not understanding how that’s consistent with the 5th amendment. I know it’s no different than the magazine bans in California and New York in that aspect, but I can’t see how those would stand up to a real constitutional challenge either.

Then there’s article 2 of our state constitution:

Article 2. [Private property subject to public use; owner to be paid]
That private property ought to be subservient to public uses when necessity requires it, nevertheless, whenever any person's property is taken for the use of the public, the owner ought to receive an equivalent in money.

Isn’t the claim that these are being taken in the name of “public safety”? That sounds enough like “use of the public” to me.

AlexanderA said:

Vermont was not one of the original 13 states. It was admitted to the Union in 1791, the same year the 2nd Amendment was ratified. (Vermont admitted in March, the 2nd Amendment ratified in December.)

That's important because Vermont's constitutional provision was adopted without reference to the federal 2nd Amendment.

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But this is true of all the original 13 states. Their state constitutions predated the US Constitution and the BOR.

What likely drives Vermont's independent streak is the reason Vermont wasn't one of the original 13 states.

vtsteve said:

So about the bump stock ban included in s.55.

They’re demanding that folks turn them in without any compensation. These legally purchased devices are going for $1k plus on the open market right now. Doesn’t this amount to a government “taking” of property?

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I don't believe this is quite accurate. There is no mandate to 'turn them in.' They are merely contraband in VT now. There is nothing stopping one from moving them out of state, or selling them out of state. One has until October 1, 2018 to effect this legally.

AlexanderA said:

Let me give you a worst-case example. Virginia has a state monopoly on hard liquor -- you have to buy your booze at state-run stores, and they add a hefty tax. So, some people have the idea to drive over to nearby Maryland or D.C. -- where liquor sales are in private stores, and the tax is lower -- and stock up at the lower prices. The Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) enforcers are known to stake out large liquor stores in Maryland and D.C., looking for Virginia license plates in the parking lots. If they spot one, they follow the person back to Virginia. As soon as he crosses the border, they pull him over. Not only the liquor, but the vehicle used to transport it, is civilly forfeited for tax evasion. After a few high-profile cases in which people have lost their BMW's or Mercedeses, they think twice about trying to pull this ploy.

I can imagine some zealous enforcers in Vermont staking out gun stores or gun shows in New Hampshire, looking for Vermont purchasers of hi-cap magazines. They follow them home, and throw the book at them. All it would take would be a few well-publicized cases to put a stop to the practice. Or at least it would be done much more surreptitiously.

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Thats one way and theres others they could use to build a 'reasonable' case to bring charges.

So..... it really isn't toothless and unenforceable.

What's the penalty for violating this new faux crime stopping law?

LemmyCaution said:

I don't believe this is quite accurate. There is no mandate to 'turn them in.' They are merely contraband in VT now. There is nothing stopping one from moving them out of state, or selling them out of state. One has until October 1, 2018 to effect this legally.

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This is the position the state of CA has taken. A Fed judge in San Diego put it on hold with an opposing position.