Vermont鈥檚 largest group of gun rights advocates took a firm stand Friday against legislation they say would only serve to add a burden to law-abiding gun owners and wouldn鈥檛 prevent crime.
In fact, according to Chris Bradley, the president of the Vermont Federation of Sportsmen鈥檚 Clubs, guns prevent murder.
鈥淲hen I see households, by census data, that have 43 percent firearms in them, yet we have the lowest murder rate in the nation, I think there鈥檚 a pretty strong correlation there,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 self-evident.鈥�
The federation was responding to legislation in the works in Montpelier that would close what鈥檚 known as the 鈥減rivate sale loophole.鈥� Currently under federal law, it is legal for someone to sell a gun to another person without running a background check on that person.
All federally licensed firearms dealers are required to conduct background checks for all sales.
鈥淎s an example of such a transaction that will likely be prohibited,鈥� Bradley said, 鈥渕ight be me selling a firearm to a lifelong friend that I grew up with, a man I have known all my life.鈥�
Under , such a sale would not be prohibited, but would require a federal background check. Bradley said he would never sell a gun to someone he suspected would not be eligible to own a firearm.
鈥淔or me, this bill attempts to stop me from doing something I would never do anyway,鈥� he said. 鈥淚n a nutshell, a private sale [law] attempts to regulate criminal activity by intruding only on those people who will actually obey the law.鈥�
Bradley鈥檚 group also condemned supporters of the proposed regulation.
鈥淲hile it is fine to support a concept, it does not appear to me to be very logical to support a bill when there is no ability to read the damn thing,鈥� he said.
The pro-gun group, however, did come out uniformly in opposition to the idea of expanding background checks, though the bill has not been formally introduced at the Statehouse.
