 Good morning, everyone. Thank you for having me. My name is Ruth Hardy from Littlebury, Vermont. Thank you to the committee for providing me with the opportunity to testify on S22, which would require a waiting period and safe storage for firearms. It was the first bill I worked on after my election last November. My desire to help ensure Vermont has common sense gun safety laws was one motivation for why I ran for office. I approached this desire for change from a variety of perspectives. I grew up in a family that owned guns. My father learned to use a gun growing up in rural upstate New York. My brother hunted waterfowl and practiced target shooting in our hayfield. Just last year, I myself ventured into skeet shooting, and I'm a pretty good shot. I'm supportive of a person's ability to safely own and enjoy using a gun for sport and hobby. I know that the vast majority of Vermont gun owners are safe and responsible. I'm a former school board member who in the name of protecting students from gun violence discussed gun safety plans and training with administrators, added funding to budgets to support safety-related upgrades to buildings and deliberated with colleagues about proper consequences for students who brought a weapon to school. I'm an advocate for women's rights and safety. We have seen in Vermont and nationwide that guns are often used as weapons of fear and control against women in domestic violence situations. Access to a gun in a domestic violence situation makes it five times more likely that a woman will be killed. Most importantly, I am the mother of three teenage children who are growing up in an era when firearms are the second leading cause of death for American teens and children. And learning how to protect yourself from an active shooter at school is now a required part of the curriculum. My youngest child was in first grade at the time of the Newtown school shooting, the same age as the children's killed. That tragedy devastated me as a mother. That was the first time I contacted my elected officials asking them to improve our gun safety laws. Two years later, when my oldest child was in ninth grade, one of her classmates committed suicide with a gun he accessed in his own home. From 2011 to 2016, 16 teenagers in Vermont committed suicide with a gun. Last year, I brought students to the state house on several occasions to testify in committees and speak with legislators about their experiences growing up in this reality and why they support common sense gun safety laws. I'm grateful that the governor and the legislator finally decided to act. I think there's more to do and that is why I worked with Senators Maruth and Clarkson to introduce S-22. During the time we were drafting the bill, a young man committed suicide in Chittenden County. His parents called for a waiting period before the purchase of a firearm so others who are rashly buying guns to take their own lives have to wait. What could be a life saving two days before obtaining a gun? During the time we were drafting the bill, two eighth grade boys at my youngest child's school, the Middlebury Union Middle School, discussed with their friends a plan to steal guns from a relative and bring them to school to shoot a classmate they disliked. Their plan was halted because one of their friends told his mother and she reported it to school officials. Following this incident, just weeks after I was elected, I was on the phone a lot with worried parents, stressed school officials, and diligent law enforcement officers. I was dealing with the stress and fear of my own kids also, knowing that this type of thing could happen in their own school with kids they knew. My son, who was in first grade during the Newtown shooting, was now in seventh grade when it all almost happened in his town. One constituent who contacted me with suggestions for S-22 said, I own a few guns and I like to shoot and hunt. I don't have an issue with reasonable restrictions and as a father of two kids, you better believe I keep my guns locked up. That thing at the middle school actually made me go out and buy new locks for all of them. Unfortunately, not all guns are stored safely and some can be accessed by people who mean to do harm to themselves or others. Some can be accessed by kids too young to know better. Waiting periods and safe storage work hand in hand. If guns are stored safely, then most people who shouldn't have access to them, including people who want to do harm to themselves or others, can't get them. And if there are waiting periods for people to buy guns, then most people who shouldn't have access to them, including people who want to do harm to themselves and others, can't get them. I respect the committee process in the Vermont legislature. I know that how hard my committees work to improve the bills that are sent to us before we send them back out. I know that some portions of bills get removed so that others may advance. I understand that the waiting period language may be more palatable to members of the committee than the safe storage language. But I believe they work best together. There is sufficient technology to allow gun owners the ability to easily access their own guns while also keeping them locked away from those who shouldn't have them. There is language to more precisely define locking devices and storage compartments that would do away with ambiguity. There are mechanisms for smoothly completing a purchase transaction 48 hours after it is initiated. There are some who say safe storage laws are not enforceable and therefore we shouldn't have them. But in talking to a law enforcement officer in my community, he told me that there are numerous laws that are not enforceable. He said that in his opinion though, laws are a statement of what our community regards as acceptable. I know that our community regards the safe storage of guns acceptable. Most Vermonters support common sense gun laws. The voters of my district elected me knowing that I would come and advocate for gun safety legislation. I know that kids are watching our actions to see what we as adults, what we as the leaders of Vermont are regard as acceptable. I believe that keeping kids safe in school, women safe in their homes and people who are struggling safe from themselves is what is most acceptable. As one of your newest colleagues, I'm asking you to support a 48 hour waiting period and safe storage for firearms. Thank you for your time and your work. Thank you all. I appreciate the time. There is some research on what civil laws have been used to deal with parents who are somebody who is similar to the ranking laws. If you don't secure your alcohol, there are certain liabilities. I don't rambling to know what civil law is regarding failure to protect the children from firearms or alcohol or marijuana. I know in some states parents have been charged civilly in Boston where somebody else's child was shot by another child. In those cases, obviously money can't bring back a child. There are certain responsibilities that people have to protect others. I'm curious about any law students in Vermont as well as how our civil standards wouldn't be so common. I know it was a case of a cake party in my district where they were from out of state, but they had a condo and they allowed a huge graduation party. Cakes appeared in the whole nine yards of other rating drinkers and they were charged who carries law under various laws. I'm curious about that. Yeah, I'll look into the civil law donation. Maybe there needs to be an education of people as to the civil laws of the state regarding their responsibilities. I'm not just talking about going in. Chris, thank you for being here and I'm sorry about cutting you short last week. Please feel free to begin wherever you want to begin. I'd like to start again by testimony slightly different. And thank you for bringing me in. And especially thank you for the public hearing last night. I know it's very time consuming, so thank you. I mentioned how great the club was to Vermont Technical College. I thought that was a great venue. And I think that on the way back, the committee was talking about much more comfortable people seeing the public hearing. And if you like that rather than in the state, I was in a bubble house where people are proud of it. Just seeing like people see much more comfortable there. I confess I was a little concerned with the parking. It really worked out well. For the record, my name is Chris Bradley. I have the honor of representing the Vermont Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs. And I wish to thank you for providing the Federation an opportunity to speak for this committee. In the packet of information I previously provided, there are individual statements concerning S1, S2, and S13. The Federation actively and vigorously supports all three of these bills, as we believe it corrects several deficiencies and oversights that resulted from a rather unsettling speed with which things were pushed through the house line here. While we support all three, we are critically concerned about the passage of S1, as this is a time-sensitive bill. Failure to pass S1 will have a negative effect on competitive shooting in Vermont. It will result in out-of-state competitors deciding not to come to Vermont. It will result in lost revenue into Vermont businesses where these tourists spend money. And it will absolutely financially hurt clubs and associations that work very hard to support and grow a sport that is recognized at the national and Olympic levels. The Federation therefore urges the Senate to pass S1 as it is and to do so with all due speed. I will now devote the remainder of my time to addressing S22. As there are two components of S22 we would like to address the second part first, the mandatory safe storage. As far as this portion is concerned, the Federation believes that this was fully addressed in the Supreme Court in the United States versus in D.C. versus L.A. We believe that this will be impossible to enforce. We believe this will negatively impact the ability to defend oneself, one's home and their loved ones. And we believe that this bill creates bizarre situations where a person is in violation by simply moving about in his or her house. We strongly oppose this portion and ask it to be dropped from further consideration. Regarding the first portion of S22, the mandatory waiting period, the Federation remains unequivocal. Suicide is a tragedy that has touched just about everyone, including myself. It is the Federation's understanding that the primary impetus of the consideration of these bills in one act of waiting period on the purchase of a firearm is to address people who impulsively act to kill themselves by buying the firearm. In the 2017 report entitled Suicide Attempt Morbidity Data Brief from the Vermont Department of Mental Health we see there were 118 suicide deaths among Vermont residents and we see that firearms accounted for 52% of those deaths. This was followed by 21% who killed themselves by self-accusing, 17% who killed themselves by poison with only 10% being caused by other reasons such as drowning, intentional murder, vehicle crash and falls. Looking beyond these tragedies, however, is telling as there were 200 hospitalizations and 823 emergency department visits for suicide attempts among Vermont residents that occurred in Vermont hospitals. This does not include less severe cases who may have been treated in the physician's office, outpatient facility or by an ENT. Also not captured are people who have suicidal thoughts, make a suicide plan or have depressive disorders and do not act with the health care system for whatever reason. We can therefore surmise that the total number of people in jeopardy is much, much higher than the 1,023 mentioned above. According to this data brief, for the period of 2015 to 2016, poisoning accounted for 55% of the emergency department hospitalizations for self-harm. These were attempted suicides. 31% were for cutting piercing. Other causes, which were classified or not classified accounted for 10%. Suffocation accounted for 2%. Fire and burning as well as firearms accounted for 1%. I will not state that these people who made to you those 1,023 documented suicide attempts really did intend to kill themselves. I will, however, suggest that it is reasonable to believe that a significant majority of those that attempted to kill themselves really did intend to end their lives. And I wish to make the following points. In considering this bill, the Federation sees a problem in attempting to achieve a balance between an individual's constitutional right of self-defense versus the establishment of a waiting period that might, possibly, delay a person from using a gun to commit suicide. According to the Vermont Judiciary Annual Statistical Report for 2018, there were 3,380 relief from abuse violence in 2018, which was an increase of 8% in the violence from 2017. For those RFA filings which become court orders, these cases represent situations where a victim is able to convince a court that they are under real threat of bodily injury or even deaths from another, such that the court will issue an order to keep the party separated. In these situations, a victim has been able to prove that they live under some acceptable level of risk or threat, which may and can include death. And we believe it likely that some of these victims may well want to take the very prudent step of obtaining the means of self-defense to preserve their own life. They have that right. An example of such a situation would be the case of Carol Bowen, formerly resident of Brewing Township, New Jersey. When Carol Bowen felt the threat of domestic violence, the petite hairdresser took steps to protect herself. Ms. Bowen had gotten her straining order against her former boyfriend. She installed security cameras and the alarm system at her home, and she then began the process of obtaining a handgun for self-defense. But it wasn't enough. Bowen, 39, was stabbed to death in the driveway of her home by her ex-boyfriend while she waited for her pistol. Carol Bowen was in fear. She took all the steps she could, and because she was not able to depend to obtain what is arguably the best means of defense, she was not able to defend herself from the attack that she herself foresaw. I could provide a litany of similar stories as there are many. Using that same case as an example, however, is it reasonable, fair, or constitutional to subject a potential victim to any waiting period? When any delay might well make the difference between saving your own life or preventing injury? How do we balance the rights of a person who wishes to preserve their life versus a person whose intent on ending theirs and can no provision be made in this bill to address that situation? People who already own firearms, in many cases a person owns firearms, wants to buy another firearm, they will typically use the same FFL. This is certainly not always the case, but generally speaking, it is. In a situation where an FFL knows that the purchaser already owns a firearm, what purpose is served by delaying the possession? I quote from a 2017 study by the Harvard School of Public Health, quote, when we compare people in gun-owning households to people not in gun-owning households, there was no difference in terms of the rates of mental illness or in the terms of the proportion saying that they had seriously considered suicide. Gun owners are not more suicidal. The intent of S-22 seems very specific. It is intended to prevent a first-time buyer who is suicidal from acting on impulse. If that is the case, shouldn't this bill create an exception that allows someone who already owns a firearm to be exempt from this waiting period? Number three, people plan. It is the Federation's view that the establishment of an arbitrary time limit will not work for the simple reason that people plan, and we have seen this time and time again. It is also clear that the suggested time limits are somewhat arbitrary, since age 59 has a waiting period of 72 hours, S-22 is suggested 48, and others are suggesting 24. Whatever the time limit that is imposed, this cannot and will not guarantee that a person involved will be stopped from attending to take their own life. If a 24-hour waiting period had been in place last year, we are led to believe that that 24-hour waiting period would have made all the difference. I ask you, will it be any less heartbreaking situation when somebody waits a day and then kills himself in the 25th hour? If we were to make it a week, would it be less tragic for the person who waited that week plus one day? Do we tweak this law each time? Four, statistics and the rest of the story. Organizations like Gunsense Vermont referenced a study published in 2015 by the American Journal of Public Health, and they relate the claim that, quote, waiting periods for gun purchases had a 51% fewer gun suicides and 27% fewer suicides overall, which sounds very impressive. I quote from this study, objectives using previous research reexamined the impact of four handgun laws waiting periods, universal background checks, gun laws, and open carry required regulations on suicide rates. Methods. We use publicly available databases to collect information on statewide laws, suicide rates, and demographic characteristics for 2013. Results. Each law was pat, excuse me, each law was associated with significantly lower firearm suicide rates and the proportion of suicides relating from firearms. In addition, each law, except for that which required a waiting period, was associated with an overall lower suicide rate. So, while this study does show that a waiting period reduces suicides by firearms, there's apparently notes for a corresponding decrease in overall suicides, which can only mean that people will simply find another means if they encounter a waiting period. Five, effect on gun shows, gun clubs, banquets, auctions, and similar venues. As a final point, but extremely important to sporting groups, individual sportsmen, sportswomen, and local condoms would be the negative effect of any waiting period on the long-established venues of gun shows, sports banquets, where firearms are possible prizes. As an aside here, these venues provide an outlet for first amendment rights amongst gun owners and sports people. This is a place where we can get together to share information and alert people to things that are moving. While there's much information about gun shows, gun shows provide a historical venue that allows both large and small firearms dealers, FFLs, to sell their wares to the public. FFLs have to compete not only with one another, but also compete with FFLs from other states, especially with rifles and shotguns. A citizen wanting to buy a firearm he only traveled to New Hampshire, Maine to buy a rifle or shotgun, no waiting period, and no for New Hampshire, no tax. For FFLs who attend gun shows, we believe there will be a decline in attendance. For the simple reason that their purpose to be there is to sell, and as they count on leaving with less inventory than what they came with. If an FFL cannot sell a firearm directly to a purchaser after a next check, the FFL will be less incentivized, and why would they travel to the gun shows in the first place? For citizens who attend gun shows, we believe there will likewise be a decrease in attendance, as these folks would know they could look, but not bring home. If they did decide to buy, and that decision happened to be on a Sunday, then a purchaser would then have to consider the loss of time and money to drive to wherever the FFL resides at some later time, so that the sale could be officially completed. Combined, less FFLs mean less displays, less displays mean less incentive for citizens to attend, less citizens attending is far less reason for FFLs to even go. A Love and Beyond means a social event that allows for the gathering of like-minded people and provides a venue for a wide variety of vendors to sell all sorts of outdoor items that are not firearms. Gun shows are a very real and very significant source of revenue to sporting clubs that host them. Examples of such events would be the Berry Gun Show, put on by the Berry Fish and Game, and the Morrisville Gun Show, put on annually by the Memorial Malley Fish and Game Club, and it used to be several others. Gun shows also bring significant revenue into their host town, such as Berry, Essex Junction, and Redwood. If any waiting period is enacted, this will have an adverse effect on all vendors who traditionally see value in paying for a table, and then displaying their wares. For vendors selling firearms, this is even worse, as they will likely stop going at all if the waiting period exceeds the length of time of the Gun Show, meaning that the purchaser will have to make multiple trips first to the Gun Show to discover what they want, and then another trip to the vendor's store sometime later to review the waiting period. In a similar vein, many sporting groups raise much-needed funds through banquets, and many of these banquets provide firearms as prizes. Examples of such banquets would be the Vermont Sports Shooting Association, Federation, the Vermont Trappers Association, and the Vermont Bearhounds Association, and others. A similar impact would be seen on auctions, such as what run by Thomas Vergeck in Merrill Auction House. I now return to that number of 1,141 suicide attempts in Vermont, of which 118 were successful. Of those 1,141 suicide attempts, about 5% were related to firearms. I would be sure that everyone in this room would agree that the best approach to solving the problem of suicide would be to address why people are being motivated to end their lives and find ways to help as this approach would address 100% of the people who are at risk. Instead, there appears to be a laser focus not on the cause, but the manner. Based on one single event, there's only a handful of similar events occurring across the past 20 years. This laser focus, by the way, targets only the method which 5% of the people at risk employ while doing nothing to address the methods the other 95% employ. Isn't the problem all about suicides, not just suicides with guns? In summary, the Federation does understand the intent of a weighing period. We are not, however, convinced it will save anyone's life, and when push comes to shove, we very clearly see an unreasonable restriction to the unalienable life of self-defense. For the above reasons and underings, the Federation was respectfully opposed as 22. If this is to pass, it is to pass. We encourage considerations and changes to the points I raised about thank you for your time if there are any questions with me. I've got a few. How about me? Of course, not having any. I think they're related to my concern here and I absolutely agree with you regarding the shooting contest and the importance of that bill. As you know, last year many of us tried to amend what was that 55 or 700 mention sign about that the House had made a huge mistake in our shooting contest as of this July 1st and we were unable to do that the process unfortunately was don't change your word in this bill because we don't want to have a conference that deals with the House so I won't get involved and think through those deals or maybe disagreement about what really happened but from my perspective, the chair of this committee process once it got to the Senate floor we're out of our control and so if we were to pass and I think we probably get five votes who knows what we'll get added to there would be another that could be another that's my fear I've even I introduced the bill that's 72 that there's some opposition but haven't seen to generate the same oppositions it's really an amendment to the extreme risk protection laws and allowing data to be collected nationwide and have them want to participate in that data collection but my concern is is that I think Ed Cutler used to turn the powers when he spoke to him that what's going to get added I wonder what your thoughts are of that from the federation that once it gets to the floor the House or Senate it gets out of control and then it might be added two points it would be my direct experience that the Senate judiciary is a far more deliberative body and because you would be the committee of origin this bill would come back to this committee regarding the briefly on S-72 it would be the federation's position that effective reporting would be a good idea the second provision as far as the medical professional may report certainly some concerns there but I think that's what we really would like to see better reporting for the medical community so at this point we offer no strong objection to S-72 S-1 at the 11th hour in 59 minutes in the Donnybrook there was the lead up to the passage of S-55 in the House there was a last minute break where I gave testimony to the House judiciary in a special break that they arranged and we pointed out the overlooked factor of competitive shooting in Vermont it was my understanding at that point that they willingly put in the exemption for competitors coming in from out of state which can be proved competitors coming in from out of state pre-registers and not going to come to a match that they may not have a place for if they're coming in from out of state um furthermore I think there's a question of the definition of import that was never defined in that bill and whether import really means he brings goods or services to sell or whether it's just transitory they're coming in and they're going to leave with it but it was our impression that the House was receptive the House judiciary understood the competitions they simply wanted more time to discuss it so I can't I listened all the time and I didn't say anything and I listened this morning but I do want to point out that at S55 there are many many thousands of people in Vermont who rejoice that finally the legislature acted in an environment of mass shootings and we nearly had one here and finally the House and the Senate managed to pass bills as governor signed so call it a Donny Brook call it horrific whatever you want to call it I call it historic and I call it action that is not the last word on gun safety so that's all I'll say I appreciate your perspective son I think several of us have different perspectives on S55 I think there was unanimous agreement on the so called red flag or extremist protection order bill which was used in Middlebury which was used in in some other places as well menus quite often more than I expected and frankly I think there were what became the issue really for me was some of the things that were in the magazine ban that never was debated in the Senate never debated in this committee we certainly had a debate about other aspects of the bill the waiting period and so forth and we all knew that but the magazine ban was never my topic here and all of a sudden it came out that's what I was talking about so just to be clear I do have another question a little different subject on the waiting periods it appears that I've tried to understand the statistics but each side has their own statistics so it's hard to go through them but I did notice several states have waiting periods that are they range from 10 days to 1 day or 24 hours to 10 days but some states have exempted long rifles and shotguns or just for handguns purchase are you familiar with any of those I am familiar with this would that help to deal with your gun show property no I really don't either would I black powder is not regulated it is just as lethal to kill many people in this whole war and that's completely unregulated I believe shotguns, rifles are just as lethal to commit suicide with as any other method of suicide when I buy a golf club I don't have a waiting period I go to a pro shop went to Dave Susie one time said I needed a fight with left handed he said I'll see what I can do it and it took him a couple of weeks to get a fight with left handed so I was effectively in a waiting period there I go to the expo in Albany they have a golf expo actually it's this weekend anybody that wants to go welcome to it it's a great deal a lot of different pros there selling their wearer clothes and all that kind of stuff but if I want to get something new I've got a wardrobe and it gets shipped to me so effectively that's a waiting period at a shop I don't know if they in the answer to that I don't believe it's a constitutional right to have a golf club in difference to a fire and just to well I just want to point out it's a waiting period that has been imposed particularly a couple of years I'm not a particularly golfer I do an extra long shaft some of my friends over here who are they're kind of smiling because they've been through the same thing I just was pointing out you don't always get what you actually had a gun show I don't know but other examples you order what you did they don't have the full spot so just last night several persons testified and mentioned this we've discussed before but in regard to the next check several persons last night said that it's not people or mental health facilities or hospitals or doctors aren't sending in information to NICS and therefore when someone goes in and gets a record check the person isn't showing up do you have any familiarity with the flaws in that system? I believe there was a statute passed a couple of years back concerning the fact that Vermont had not been forwarding records on mental health issues to NICS certainly we've heard from Ledge Council that there are exemptions from HIPAA that allow medical professionals especially in cases of extreme risk to make those points known I think that's a necessary component we're not really talking about thankfully the S72 does attempt to address that but in all honesty it's a may not a shall until such time we make a commitment to the cause of suicide and what is driving these people whether it's an educational at schools whether it's a public health campaign public service announcements to engage directly people at risk I'm not sure we're going to see any in fact I'm pretty convinced that we're going to continue to see more suicides I think that they're looking to the testimony last night I think there's a lot of misunderstanding about who gets reported to the NICS around mental health because name the federal says anybody with a mental health issue and we limited it to just people who've been adjudicated and are under the supervision of the so there are lots of people running around with mental health issues that aren't reported and they shouldn't be reported we already made that decision but the people with I believe the supervision are being reported now well could one of the law clerks just check and make sure that we are reporting people to NICS that are under the supervision if there is a hospitalization or a non-hospitalization order there's can somebody just check to see that the laws have been passed? yes I heard what we passed it requires after versus to find somebody if they're under the supervision that's right but I think that anybody with a mental health issue is supposed to be being reported because that's the way the federal works but that's not the way we work I understand in my previous packet the Federation went to some significant lengths to look at what sort of systems might be put in place to share information so that FFL at the point of time of the sale might be able to be made privy to information that if they were aware of they would not make that sale but frankly this is a privacy issue this has been rather closely protected and for some very good reasons people don't want to there are people who won't seek help for the stigma that may result or the simple reason that there may be fallout for them seeking help veterans are a case in point here how do you interpret immediate possession or control in the safe storage if you leave a firearm outside his or her immediate possession or control how does that get interpreted? frankly if I leave the room that that firearm is in I believe it's out of my possession immediate control so if in fact in the previous example if I get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and I have a firearm in my bed stand I am no longer in control I would suggest that for my it's an incredibly safe state we don't really have issues that other states deal with in terms of firearms very much an educational issue youth growing up in Vermont are having an advantage of having such things as under safety courses that used to be fairly widely Boy Scouts would do this this was a common thing why are we dealing this in schools there was a study we've done with two classes one group of students that had not been exposed to firearms another group of students that had been educated on firearms they took those two controlled groups they put a pistol on one bit in each and observed what happened the kids that were not educated on the guns immediately gravitated to the gun picked it up started playing with it pointing at other people the kids that were educated don't look for a teacher if I could I'd like to just ask a question about that so last night we had really two kinds of testimony on people talking about how to keep their guns in their home there were half the people that seemed to me who said of course I always keep my guns locked up I have kids I wouldn't respect somebody who didn't keep their guns locked up but I don't think the government should do it we're already doing it and I appreciate that and those kinds of people and I believe them there was another kind of person who said I have a loaded gun on my left side table but I've taught my kids never to play with it and I there's a certain kind of person who goes out with their dog and they tell themselves I don't need a leash even though there's a leash law because my dog's very well behaved until the dog bites the body in this case what do you and your organization think should happen if somebody believes that and then their kid does pick up the gun and kill themselves or does pick up the gun and accidentally shoot their brother is there any responsibility on the part of the adult and this gets back to Senator Sears question about civil responsibility I think if my kid was playing at the house and the child grabbed that parent's gun and killed my kid I think I could sue them I could win that case question being shouldn't there be some kind of stronger prohibition against leaving a loaded gun to be picked up by you turning that situation around Senator a parent who leaves a firearm around the child and does something horrendous possibly even shooting themselves would we really prosecute the parent would we really hold that parent accountable when they're going to be under such horrendous feelings I get that my point is we require we require the defense because it's called an attractive nuisance in law in other words children are drawn to pools they will fall in and some of them will die so we say on your property inside your boundaries you have to have a pool because you have an attractive nuisance yes yes and in terms of guns in our society with what kids see on TV there's nothing more attractive to them than a gun my question is and this goes to safe storage what is your group's position on it seemed to me that there were many many people that you would consider your members who honestly believe guns should be locked up if that's the case then what should happen with people who refuse to lock up their guns whose kids kill other kids or themselves I'm not sure the S22 makes any impression for housemaids that specifically have children I raised my child I live alone this law affects me and others like me even with growing kids even with 23 year old adults would you support it if it was limited I think this is an educational situation and for every situation you can describe where there's the possibility of her illness happening I can look at this and say we're going to rebalance the constitutional way of self-defense and I look at this as an educational issue I think it's very tragic and frankly the school shootings are not even really appropriate to this discussion I don't believe but my brother my brother I believe lived under the nuclear threat where it was ducking cover and there was not an acceptable situation that was just what was had to be done in schools at that time if we address education in our schools if we address the issue of suicide and the causing of what causes that I think it's a much better bang for a buck we initiated it from our gunshot project after a successful iteration of that in New Hampshire we did that on volunteer this is the state this came from what the Department of Health took from somewhere else and we could do this public campaign the safe storage I think it is well intentioned I understand where you're coming from and if we can save that one person but I weigh very heavily the ability of you of everybody in this world to live their life and their ability to preserve their own life look at this education as far as pools go I think we would look if a household had a pool there's probably more likelihood of someone drowning than a house that doesn't have a pool and I would to say isn't that the same argument as a gun if you have a household with a gun in it there is probably statistically a higher probability that a gun was a problem similar to the pool but it's an education I would certainly think if parents aren't educating their children about firearms there's firearms in the house that's a recipe for disaster so why don't we turn this around and say the problem is education we should be enforcing education on this real issue and that should be in schools so we can make awareness of this I'm not sure that I'm trying to pass along about the sanctity of what I need to do in my home when I don't have my rice on this it was born in 81 you see a young man in and out of my house so it's really just me now but yet there's no provision for just adults in the house this is a fairly broad sleeping bill there could be to the point of my education we don't need to operate in exclusion of other for instance with the opioid epidemic we pursue 20 new lines of attack against that epidemic every year some are educational and some are otherwise so in this case I agree with you very much education without I just think that the two can work in a responsible way Joe the final question should I introduce you with this is not a question of punctuation point Eric there is a statute called cruelty to a child or cruelty to a minor child can you pull that up or can you benefit yeah Chris thank you so much I'm very much appreciative of the opportunity to thank you I have children who have been up with you up there in a little bit thank you next witness is Terry Lashes Summers I'm going to do my best to get through all the witnesses so if you need to make a break please do so long I'm not going to take that out of the way today otherwise I mean we need to finish the document today so we have time to mark up about 15 other bills I'll take it now just hand it to us I'm going to do my best not to cry in front of you this year I'm here with the members of the committee my name is Clay Lashes Summers and I'm the executive director of Uncense Vermont thank you for the opportunity to speak today Uncense Vermont is a growing coalition of concerned citizens, dot owners non-dot owners, Democrats, Republicans progressives, independents and more to understand that there's no other threat to public safety in the United States that looms as largest on violence Uncense Vermont advocates for unsafety legislation and other measures that will help guns out of the hands of people who should not have them on behalf of Uncense Vermont I'm here today to urge the committees to support Senate Bill 22 waiting periods help reduce the occurrence of suicides in other impulsive acts of violence firearm suicide makes up the majority of gun deaths each year half of all suicides in the U.S. are carried out with a firearm in 2017 Vermont's firearm suicide rate was 1.5 times higher than the national northeastern states when compared to other means of attempting suicide guns are by far the most lethal most people who attempt suicides do not die unless they use a gun across all suicide attempts not involving a firearm less than 5% will reset in death but for gun suicides those statistics are flipped approximately 85% of gun suicide attempts end in death this fact is incredibly important because the vast majority of all those who survive a suicide attempt go on to live out their lives and do not subsequently die by suicide a reduction in suicide attempts by firearm would result in an overall decline in the suicide rate it is often said that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem waiting periods may help prevent firearm suicides by delaying access to firearms in delaying the immediate access to a firearm waiting periods insert a buffer between impulse and action in our essential and providing that time time for someone to rethink what they are about to do time for them to reach out to someone and get help time that every parent who has lost a child to suicide wishes they had been given a family member to notice the signs time for law enforcement to complete a thorough background check studies show that policies that create this buffer are associated with reduced rates of firearm suicide according to Giffords Law Center states with waiting period loss for gun purchases have lower rates of suicide research published in the American Journal of Public Health showed that states with waiting period loss have 51 percent fewer firearm suicides and a 27 percent lower overall suicide rate than states without such loss when South Dakota repealed its 48 hour waiting period for handgun purchases in 2009 overall suicides the following year increased by 7.6 percent I'm here today to ask you all to support Senate Bill 52, Senate Bill 22 waiting periods are overwhelming they're supported by the public and effective in reducing gun violence and the incidence of suicide and attempted suicide by firearm I'm grateful that today in Vermont we have the opportunity to pass life-saving legislation there's a few things that I did not put in here but I just wanted to say obviously we are in support of Senate Bill 72 I think that that bill has made a huge difference in the State of Vermont and in terms of I did not want to address in my testimony but I will say I'm just forward forwarded Eric a chart of all the states that have safe storage loss and I just I just always think about safe storage because I have personal experience with you know with the case where there was a firearm left and a child picked it up and shot another child and that family will never be the same the increase in children gaining access to firearms because they're not secure is rising in this country and I can you know submit submit the work that's been done around that but thank you bye thank you yeah good can I ask you a question? yeah please it's been a lot of time last year listening to you and Karen Cookson and Amber O'Wars about domestic violence in these situations and as a charter member of the Calgary County Task Force on domestic violence I'm pretty familiar with what goes on with domestic violence we heard repeatedly there's dangerous terrorists in domestic violence victims life in five days immediately following their separation it seems to me and please pray for me if I'm wrong and they may not be waiting for obstacles placed on the path of domestic violence but would otherwise choose to give the most self-defective attack device I can imagine am I wrong in my assumption? you're wrong I can give you a look at studies that I don't have right here in households where there is domestic violence the the rate of incidents where okay I have to back up because I was not prepared to talk about this we the Vermont Network did submit testimony last night that to Senator Sears and to the committee I will tell you this I will use a person I will use a story first to tell you in the best way I can without all my statistics what I know to be true the woman who was I think this is a good example the woman who was the head I know this is not really in my world but she was the highest level woman fighter boxer she was from Florida she had a weapon and her husband manager and she were getting a divorce and he got her weapon which was readily accessible and shot her I know of three other cases where that has been the case women are shot because they don't have when there's a gun president in that house that is it's like 55% times higher that the woman is shot it's not a matter of anything else so I've heard that our member for it's been used many times by the National Rifle Association and I don't think the statistics bear that out but I would be happy to send you the present last night do you hear the woman do you dismiss her I don't dismiss her pain I don't dismiss her fear and I don't dismiss what she thought to be true what I know to be true is that the rate of women grabbing a gun to shoot their domestic these are very low very very low most of the time the gun is used against women and that's just the case of it and many times it's used against the children that are standing next to the woman and I have tried very hard in this committee not to bring up stories of people across this country that has happened to it's very personal to me and I will never dismiss another person's fear but I also know that in national discussions this has come up time and time and time again and if you want to line up the women who have been used against them and line up the women who want that gun the proof is that the women would have been shot or you referenced the what you guys call the talking point that we really we really need to preserve women's access to guns to defend themselves but I think the hallmark of these kinds of arguments is that when they surface in the way of a shooting the solution is to give more guns to people in schools in this case in terms of domestic violence the solution is to give more guns to women bottom denominator being the solution is always more guns for a certain kind of person making the argument so my understanding matches your own everything I have ever read is that if there is a gun in a situation regardless of who owns the gun it will be used on the woman in a domestic violence situation very, very well I just thank you please I just wondered in Vermont not nationally but in Vermont of suicides by firearm how many of them were first time gun owners who just went and purchased a gun immediately to commit the suicide and how many of them were either had access to guns someplace else or stolen or whatever I don't really have that information I mean I think one of the things that happened has happened across the country and in Vermont is that we you may have assumptions and now that there can be more research done and I think that that is going to happen because the CDC can now do research even though they don't have research often the way that a death is recorded won't have all that information I think it's very hard to follow try very hard to understand it seems that each side has statistics to offer to bolster their case and they believe strongly in their case and believe strongly in their statistics they just want to ultimately ultimately ultimately if you believe that a waiting period or safe storage or something of that nature would help to prevent unintentional injuries and how do you believe it would reduce suicides and then you have to believe that suicides are not a planned event but they're an explosive decision that someone makes and in many cases they may not carry through with their threat but with a firearm could they end the charge more lethal and then perhaps taking a lot of pills and somebody comes and kills so I think those are the types unfortunately the statistics don't allow this I I think it's whether or not you believe that it would reduce the number of suicides because it may be an impulsive act and not a planned act I do believe that and I believe it's the reality of the coming so I do believe that and I have seen that happen in other areas so I do believe that and that's what I've been trying to testify to I didn't have to Right, that's right I think we try to find statistics really good I think there are certainly one of the arguments made at the public hearing last night that really enabled the idea that was that do for a safe storage I can't I can't get them caught in a few minutes oh my god if you live in Reedsboro you're not going to get a cop for an hour if they happen to be unless they happen to be right there in Reedsboro because Reedsboro is over in mountains next to Massachusetts the barracks in Shassbury generally takes 45 minutes to an hour I remember a guy called me and said I'm out there with a baseball bat trying to scare out some kids and I said well that was pretty stupid you know why don't you go inside and wait but now it was over 45 minutes before the police arrived so I understand that particularly in rural areas where the access to larges for the community can be they talked last night a lot of people testified talking in terms of minutes about so I just have a I know that statistics are used anyway we want them to but I was a little one of the things that Chris said was that I think it was the Harvard study that when they looked at suicide overall suicide rates that suicide by firearms was reduced by waiting periods overall suicide rate wasn't reduced in those states and you said that in South Dakota the overall suicide rate went up or the suicide rate by firearms it was by firearms so the old yeah I guess I didn't say that so it was the suicide rate by firearms so we don't know overall suicide rate went up I can find out and also appeal their way I I just believe in common sense policies thank you very much I appreciate it our next witness is Bill Smith representing the National Studio can I explain one more question for Claire? I'm sorry can I just ask you one more question sure no it's okay I just because this has been bothering me a 48 hour waiting period would impact everybody so it isn't just first time gun owners so you've already got 12 guns in your house why would there be a 48 hour waiting period for you to get another one that is something this committee will have to do this is a all I know okay from where I sit is if there is person who that's for new gun purchases I get for the gun purchase because that might be an impulsive act but this would affect everybody not just new gun purchases I mean new gun owners so why would we make somebody who already has firearms wait 48 hours because that's not an impulsive act I think that is you know you're asking a question and I understand that I really understand that what I am talking about is you know when someone this 48 hour waiting period is done in a lot of places and just having a buffer gap of someone going to buy a gun to commit suicide great I know I get that but if I've heard about guns I'm not trying to argue but I'm just trying to put this together because we have to make the policy right so I think that's what I'm saying I mean I have what I know to be true I have seen and that's a question that I think the committee will have to wrestle with I also there's a man in Vermont that we have not brought in to testify and he was he almost came yesterday but he felt a lot of apprehension about doing that you know who may testify another time he had guns previous he went and bought another gun tried to commit take his life by gun did not succeed caused great physical damage to himself so you know that might be a question that I would ask I think anything that you can do anything that you can do that will prevent a tragedy by gun no matter if it's one life last night I heard one life was not worth it and I'm here to disagree with that I'm sure that's what we need that Bill Smith Mr. Chair and members of the committee committee for the record and I've also submitted an Estimate electronic agreement with the director of government affairs of the National Shooting Sports Foundation I'm the attorney in Northfield as well and I know there are times a bit limited but I first of all I'd like to give you some specific stories about if you will say stories and suicide which I've had direct experience in I think that the articulateness of Chris Bradley and the emotion of the other speakers here today is something that you need to balance out and the information provided by both sides is very important to this discussion although I I'm going to ask your indulgence a bit because this is very personal to me as well as I know it is for many other witnesses you have on this issue I have I don't have my usual well-organized stuff for you today because of that it's hard when your professional life gets involved with something you feel passionately about I think people on both sides of this issue can relate to that and I would say that I have experienced firearms used to protect a family and I've experienced a close family member's choice in their life for the firearms I grew up in Plainfield in a family of dairy farmers and stump cutters I've been here as I used to say since Christ was a corporal and sort of the some bedrock folks that Bernie Sanders actually told me were the soul to the other people he was honored to represent in Washington and I believe him in that but growing up in Plainfield was kind of a microcosm for and for the way our state has evolved today there were a lot of old time Vermont Yankees there and there were new folks coming into guard college and it was Berkeley East was what it was called in the early 70s if I recall correctly so you had the farmers and the hippies and it was a good way of place to grow up but there was also this edge of political tension that was not always pleasant and coming to it from the farmer side of the equation I typically had one view of it I have the more tolerant view of things now I think because I've grown up to see both sides of it and the reason I'm sharing this with you is that when I was a little boy my father and mother would take us on Sunday drives to go for picnics and at that time you could drive up into Hovered Park and have a picnic there and climb the tower right up the hill behind the building and we did that and one day we were driving out you could drive down the dirt path down to Elm Street and I was made six years old but this is one of the events of my life that I remember as vividly as it happened yesterday as we drove down around a corner into an open area in the woods there was a big rock across the road in front blocking the path of the vehicle a big rock and there was a group of people having a party out there in the woods and that's fine and my father came down the hill and I remember my father said an expletive because he saw something that concerned him and about 25 folks dressed in colorful garb and with long flowing hair both men and women obviously very different from my family and my father with his skirt cut military background and dairy firing background we drove down the hill and all of a sudden this group of people were all around the car and I was in the seat right behind my father and my father had his window down and this man came up to the window and was inviting us to join their party and as he leaned in closer to talk to my father my father pulled out a pistol and literally put the front side of it right up this man's nose and told him to have his people move the rock and get out of the way and and the look of terror on his face was he knew what the situation was going to happen so everyone moved the rock and we drove out of there and my mother said to my father I didn't know he had a pistol in the car and my father said better to have it and not need it then need it and not have it and my perspective as a father on that many many years later is that I'm glad my father had training and experience and skill to get all of us out of that potentially deadly situation including the man who came up to the window and to not hurt him either now there's not many people in my experience who would have that training experience and skill in that moment of extreme stress but I raised the issue with you and say there's new experience in public firearm taken out of what was undoubtedly unsafe storage to protect his family growing up in Plainsfield my grandmother was a Democrat some of you may be surprised to learn she was also the town moderator and one day she said you got to meet this guy he's coming to Plainsfield 4th of July parade and sure enough this young guy jumps up on her porch to meet her sleeves rolled up energetic some doctors from up in Shelburne and she goes she introduced himself to her and she goes he's going to go far and watch him on this course with Dr. Howard Dean and she also told me was that new folks in town were from honors too and we all have different perspectives and we're going to be tolerant of each other and that's something that this debate in particular is very much red state, blue state, green shirt foreign shirt pick your color and we got to get beyond that in Vermont and this is the committee where you can get beyond that because those hippies that I grew up with in Plainsfield I married one of them and sociologists told me that's unique but that just never happened you partied together but nobody ever got together and got married and had kids but I think that my grandmother's tolerant view and the tolerant view of the people that were here before the farmers if you will were short-handed is historically based on tolerance that we have in Vermont the libertarian view values of those farmers and stone cutters that fought in the Civil War that fought in the battle with bulls like my dad and the cold war like my dad and George Hicken Dean Davis those are the kind of folks that made this a different place now the second part of this story is that on July 6th 2003 two police officers came to my door at 9 o'clock on that Sunday morning to inform me and my wife that her brother was dead and he had shot himself in Cabot Vermont at his apartment and I I feel for the family Andrew Black I know what they were feeling to some degree I was not his parent I was his brother but it didn't have to happen but it did and I would say the same to them that I said to my mother at the time when I gave his eulogy in the same church that he walked my wife down the aisle to meet said no parent should have to bury their child his experience in life was different than Andrew Black's he took a wrong path hurt family members he still loved him and his choice to end his life was something that in retrospect you could have seen a comment Rick taking behavior jumping in in a cliff jumping in quarries from 100 feet running for more than 160 miles an hour on the next day shooting heroin in the stains terrible things that were going on crying for help that none of us needed well I didn't heed the cry for help because he wouldn't accept our help and offered to but when I bailed him out a prison in New York State down in Westchester County for the second time I didn't know how to help him and I mentioned his case to this committee about 10 or 12 years ago in context of heroin epidemic and it still continues today and that makes me think that we haven't solved that epidemic by legislative action we've taken some good steps on in this committee I know this committee don't work on that but it's very similar in this case to the suicide what legislatively can we do and I guess I'd say that we all have these experiences and the echoes of a suicide and the family continue every time I go up Route 215 in the Cabot I stop at this grave and I ask him why and for every time I go I don't get an answer you know but I don't think I guess I'm here in a way to kind of make sure we all humanize both sides of this discussion I choose to lock up my firearms I have 14 years in household and we're blessed in that they have lots of friends that are over and I love them all dearly but I don't trust them I don't mind saying that in a mean way I'm just saying I have responsibility to lock them up but I also have but I'm blessed with financial wherewithal to afford a gun safe and a fancy finger print access lock box and things like that and I understand well my kids know the rules and they grew up with my firearms in those safes I don't maybe their friends don't maybe their friends can't wait to go steal Mr. Smith's firearm to sell it for drugs I don't know that's my choice to to do that and I understand where the senator was talking about those tough cases that are out there that are about safe storage and these are hard cases and in old adage and all those hard cases make bad law if you're rushing the stuff particularly in this we need to heal people bring them back together what happened with S-55 last year was tough on folks it's created a situation where there's lack of trust on one side of the aisle but if you get you know my concern is that if you get a bill out of this committee the chairman talked about earlier saying what's going to happen with it on the floor or in the house or come back over those farmers that in Plainfield don't run the show anymore it's the hippies around the show in Plainfield and that's fine politics change so what can we do well suicide it's a sad, it's a real issue in our state so is safe storage of firearms waiting periods are going to work we have the drunks around the rides when that post-script to the issue of my brother on suicide that was a significant event that led to my divorce from your sister I'm not going to kind of specific to that of you but these things shatter families in ways that you can't be covered from and the risk of having your home robbed and your gun steak in Israel the fire orders know that we've got ways to work on that that don't require legislative action home invasions are on the increase in the state if you think they're not I would just give you the advice I was given by the chief of police in the town where my ex-wife was living with our daughters and I said I'm concerned that there's a specific individual who wants to do her harm and what we do if we find out he's there and the chief of police said I don't have a gun and I said maybe she had a gun she chose not to and that's fine but she has a risk, my daughters are at risk from somebody that wasn't there no compunction of going into their home and doing whatever it felt like a conversation that we need to have is one about suicide prevention let's have it but it does need to be open an honest conversation that some of the other folks have touched on the concern that this might be just one more step in the greater gun control I say let's take it out of gun control and let's talk about suicide prevention however it happens Chris Bradley knows the facts and figures in a way that I never can and I would defer to him on that and see him as someone that can take part in these debates as well and should be listened to trust that trust needs to be rebuilt after S-55 I'm willing to do what it takes to do that and I think we all need to reach across like my grandmother said we're all remarks and let's try to figure this out in the Vermont way that comes to you from national groups even the national shoot sports in a way that works in Vermont these groups will be part of that discussion and we'll all be at the table but it's bigger than that and it deserves more measured more measured response from this and I look to this committee to be the leader because for so many years and Mr. Chairman I thank you for that on this issue drug use firearm abuse otherwise we're just going to constantly have the next bill and make it all about gun control gun control gun control and you're never going to get people to solve the problem to work on the problem of reducing the amount of young people in our state in particular in their life you must we've got to all reach across the island because I'm concerned that the people I grew up with people that I that agree with the company the Federation the Foundation I work with the gun folks a pretty skittish about the political process and the building we can just slow this down because I haven't really appreciate it I thank you for your time today the letter from Jacob Wiegen does specifically look at issues of storage and playing periods I would say this that I'll newly move firearms or sold with a locking device provided with them which if used is a correct if in effect it means of addressing issues of unauthorized access to that firearm thank you for your time and I have a problem that I've gone on too long very helpful and reminder that in my opinion the two issues of the legislation have failed to adequately address not the way in which the administration focus on the heroin epidemic the bill that just came out of the house of welfare committee to take a look at the treatment for drugs being started in rural areas of the state I know Chittenden County is very happy that Chittenden County uses a number of drug overdoses but the number of drug overdoses in the rest of the state is risen and part of that is because of resources that aren't available here thank you for your reminder about that so the health currently at 54 beds at the time of Chittenden County there's a lot of displacement the institutions committee the health welfare committee the corporations committee are all working to try to restore some sand to the system that we have that's broken not true of most states and that's one thing that I appreciate your reminder about those two issues well they work hand in hand and they do overlap a lot whether we pass this bill or don't pass this bill those two issues are out there anyway if we can get on to the next question thank you our next question is Devin Craig the former president of the very efficient game club I guess I'll be in a speed reading again you all remember I'm sure it's firmly embedded in your mind I only got through half of what I had to say last night but I'll try to be brief just to reiterate the efficient game club and other clubs and communities in Vermont are going to lose a bunch of revenue now that's an unintended consequence but it's a result of a 48 hour waiting period it's a reality now the gun culture in Vermont is real is tradition 99% of the gun usage in Vermont I firmly believe is illegal and without any consequences but it was said before what is a life worth is a life worth dollars and cents it's actually priceless what's worth something's worth but one person is not worth to another but how do we prevent liberties being taken because we want to save one life that's something we all struggle with we're all going to have to struggle with it's very tough to feel that you're going to solve the world's problems by passing a law that's very tentative on this result anyhow I'll read the second part of what I said excuse me, the second part of S22 would require all firearms to be locked up in households not only is this highly unenforceable it severely imparts the natural right of a person to be able to defend themselves especially in rural Vermont where law enforcement is used in many minutes away we believe S22 is nothing but an opportunistic effort on the part of the anti-gun people to continue their own prejudice assault on law-abiding gun owners we believe that laws of Vermont should be made using common sense in pragmatic reasoning they should not be made in reaction to aberrant behavior suicides are not normal you're never going to stop them they're going to happen unfortunately I know I lost my brother and my father law should be made for the common good of all citizens of Vermont not just a slight few all of them you know, there's a lot of statistics out there use both ways and minoring in statistics in college I know what you can do with a group of figures you can do anything you want with them but if we look at pragmatic reasoning you're not going to stop suicides you might make a small tiny dent in them but it's not going to happen based on the law the other unintended consequence of gun shows for instance being eliminated is the fact that it's actually a form of public speech groups of people all throughout the state get together and talk about new things, old things hunting, fishing, all kinds of stuff that's going to go away that's part of the Vermont culture is that we're a big family I live in Plainfield, Vermont it's kind of a disruptive family but we mostly get along the gentleman before me was talking we don't all have the same ideas but we need to get along and we need to preserve the culture of this state there's a small chipping away of our rights are we going to become such a homogenized society that individualism is lost are we going to come to the point where there's a law for breathing we need to use common sense and say I empathize with the blacks I empathize with the dead and cranks but do we need to have laws prevent human adult behavior this is my father and my brother made a choice it was a wrong choice we don't get to interview them after they're dead we don't know what goes through their minds maybe they leave a letter maybe they don't but that's something that we will never be able to prevent we don't want it to maybe but on a large scale it's not going to happen there's too many ways to do it out there a bridge drugs anything like that can be used if you can't get it done I'll tell you what my brother and my father would have done this some other way it was part of their lives with alcoholism, bipolar disorder stuff like that it's a health issue in the state of Vermont that's where we need to go you start making a dent with health issues support groups and things like that that's where our tax money should go I could expound forever about it I won't but I thank you very much for your time thank you that concludes the testimony at 22 and 1, 2, 3 1, 2, and 13 you want to take a 5 minute break and then we'll pick up on S72 2 of the witnesses are by phone and I don't think Jen Hurter is inside here right now so we're going to just take a 5 minute break we haven't actually discussed S72 at all and it doesn't require you to do something right I think asking you to do something is an opportunity to say I don't want to do it I thank you for the opportunity to wait in on this for the record, Brian Greerson, Chief Superior speaking to S72 and I'll speak only to that portion of the bill that relates to the request to the judiciary which is under annual reporting office of court administrator and agency on page 3 it gets specific beginning on line 3 as to what's requested or required from the court we can certainly comply with number 1 and number 2 when we track that data anyway the number of extreme risk protection orders filed, the number of issues, the number of denied the number of extended whatever data you want on the history of the order and as well as number 2 the geographical data indicating the county where the petition was filed number 3 we would not have access to that information in other words once the order is issued as to whether or not the individual receives treatment long whether they receive treatment we would not have access to that information it would not it would not be any information contained in our files basically the only way we would hear from the case again is if someone requested an extension of the order so 1 and 2 we can comply with completely 3 we just don't have any of that information would not have it even under our new case management system you but you are tracking this we do A, A yes sorry we were in 3 to provide information where an order was either dismissed or extended as I remember there a 6 month order the first is at the first step, the second step and the third step would be immediately moved exactly so maybe if we were more specific in 3 to the information that the court would have whether or not the order was continued after the 6, I might remember 60 days and then after 6 months it was either you know renewed or certainly we would track that information that would be the information maybe in 3 that are describing the follow up information information on what happens really could be an extension of section 1 the number of orders filed the number of orders issued and the number extended that information we would have anything else? no the rest of the bill as I saw obviously relates to health health I think you were wondering this morning on a separate issue 5 years you might know how to visit which is a complaint regarding the reporting of the national background check system when the court has found some of the data themselves or others there was a statute passed that required everyone that goes into the custody of the Department of Health has to be reported I don't have the numbers if you are interested in the numbers I can get those for you are we reporting? there seems to be some misinformation what are our odds? we're reporting as we're required to do whether it's being properly in other words we don't submit it to the ultimate registry we submit it to I believe it's through PCIC and then they forward it on but we're doing our piece that would be the next step I think it's also misunderstanding that some people think that everybody with health issues should be reported just has to be in custody we're trying to be very careful to respect the rights of persons that have virus so we made the recording of the court order there may be some confusion of that people who are we didn't want to explain some of the receiving accounts but it doesn't mean that there is a number of people my recollection was that they could be under treatment of mental illness but unless they're in a part of mental health either a hospitalization or non-hospitalization order and thank you for taking me out of order I appreciate it I think you were we'll follow down to number 3 and then have to be elsewhere thank you very much we have Barbara first Karen Hartman before you die thought it was the department the agency the conservancy would that be mental health or is that the health department this was a while ago this is going to be a bridging head on schedule I'll go ahead and try her if she may be the wrong person I don't know who that is sometimes these cell phones you have to senate fiduciary committee we're discussing S72 and there is a report required by the agency human services regarding the extreme risk of protection orders and I wonder if you wanted to comment on the bill I'll just talk about the hidden implications yeah yeah sure, so ASAP hasn't taken a position on it so what I kind of said was just highlighting some of the issues that I think could come up who took them without saying whether or not they definitely will be I think one of the things is that the definitions your definitions are those that completely track with us it does talk about a serious and imminent risk but when you define serious imminent you include circumstances where healthcare provider recently used that sentence that doesn't actually talk about imminent so that could be an issue one of the other things I have to talk about is you may disclose a serious imminent and it's to a person who is recently able to prevent or lessen the cost and in here it only could be the option of reporting to law enforcement and there could be a question about whether or not that's the right person to report it to for example in three when we talked about COVID-19 it left it open since they just had to take reasonable care to recall yep we all have nightmares about COVID-19 yeah, I'm assuming that's what I'm asking to talk about it the other thing is HIPAA does talk about good faith and if you put that in your belt you don't have the definition of good faith and HIPAA talks about good faith is a belief based on the covered entity's actual knowledge or in reliance of a credible representation by a person so it may be important to put that in there I think one of the other things HIPAA said you may provide this information and so faith can be more restrictive in principle but it can't be much restrictive and I think there may be an argument about whether or not Vermont has made it more restrictive when you're looking at kind of a case law when you're looking at PEC and then Poolegaunty and then ultimately at 3 act 51 because I think there could be an argument that Vermont narrowed and since act 51 talked about how gentlemen there's no legal duty to keep the control and conduct of another to protect the third person from harm and what I really call that is a special relationship between people like a mental health professional and client or patient and this definition is really broad because you're talking about just the healthcare provider and it's a really broad definition and so I think there's a question about how a relationship is there the other thing is that special relationship is based on the standards of the profession and that's kind of keeping person the ability to make that determination and your definition is the fraud but again there could be a question about whether or not you have acknowledged what is the standard that you'd be looking at one of the other things that just 3 act 51 talked about that it's one of the reasons for overturning Kulagau was that it didn't have an identifiable victim there's a lot of testimony about how difficult that would be to try and forgive the public in general and then the definition of your bill does talk about the person or the public so you're lacking that identifiable so those are kind of the bigger issues that I saw that could be a question I understand that would a school be an identifiable would a you know if the health care provider had that the patient poses an extreme and imminent risk of causing harm to themselves or other would that include Middlebury High School for example well when you're looking at Act 51 it talks about identifiable victim so I think there was testimony about how a school would not be an identifiable victim necessarily so it's really fact specific so it's hard to say there could be an instance although I think you could make the argument either way I feel like if the health care provider believed that this person had considered shooting up and doing mass shooting at a high school in Vermont like Middlebury or but didn't have a specific person but either group of students or a group of teachers I thought in Kulikowski we put some language that it was an identifiable victim or victims that somehow there was language in my wrong care and I thought we put something in so that if the person said I need to go shoot Dr. Jones that was the identifiable victim but if he said I'm going to go shoot everybody in the fifth grade that I thought we made a provision for that so that that was covered so it's just quote directly from Peck a mental health professional who knows more based upon the standards of the mental health profession should know that his or her patient poses a serious risk of danger to an identifiable victim has a duty to exercise reasonable care I remember this discussion but the language was just quoted from Peck right there's just a couple of questions Hi Karen isn't that different though under Peck you're talking about when there's a duty to disclose all that's being going on here all that's proposed here is that there's a discretionary ability to disclose under certain situations and I heard what you said earlier but it seems to be that the language tracks the HIPAA extension word for word it's verbatim it's true that it doesn't include every piece of the HIPAA but it's quoted from I think it's J1 on the HIPAA exemptions is where the language is used to clarify the definition of necessary to prevent or lessen a serious and imminent threat to the health or safety of a person in the public I think it was intentional to then tie that to the definition that's used in the extreme risk protection order statute any comment on that so I think so I think the issue could be that the state law can be more restrictive than HIPAA and so it could be an argument that by the case law intact and then Act 51 that were not shown to make it more restrictive than HIPAA and instead of having at least persons or lessen limited to identify whole victims I'm not saying whether that is or not because I'm just saying that it could be argued that that you made it more restrictive who would make that argument in other words in other words for the health care provider I think the concept here of the health care provider being able to disclose this information in a situation implicated by ERBO was proposed by a health care provider so that just makes me wonder who would make the argument that you're talking about would it be challenged by a health care provider declined to make the disclosure because they thought that it might be limited by Vermont a lot from doing so or by HIPAA who would raise that challenge is my question well a health care provider because it's discretionary they could choose not to I think where you may come into an issue and have a conceit group or a person who they reported on the right to disclose that protected health information you know I don't know if that would happen but I think that that's where you might get the challenge if someone who's health information was disclosed thanks that helps on the should it be shallow or should it be mad your language should it should it give the mental health or the health care provider the discretion or should it be an automatic that you have well HIPAA says may so you can't you have to track well I mean I think you should use may of course it's your design but it seems like that may be more consistent thank you that's helpful other questions for Karen thanks for reminding us of cool healthcare some of the issues and thank you for the testimony I really appreciate it you're more than welcome to do it no no problem thank you you're welcome thank you did that mean should it be online 13 should it be an extremely imminent or just leave it as it is you probably want to track the idea there was to track the language under my miracle statute online 7 you use the term imminent online 13 should you dream British language well I guess my question the series of imminent appears on the sign 7 and line 11 so the idea there is that you could take in the HIPAA language and define it to include so you're right have these imminent both places but you got it online 7 but it's covered by a line 11 exactly thank you sure thank you was she the right person yeah doctor for sorry to know he was supposed to testify the last time oh he was still in the emergency he was doing his job he's a Bennington doctor he's also been very active Chris, doctor so thanks for taking time with us Dick Sears and you're with the senate judiciary committee and remember where this is here and we're taking up the bill that you recommended that's 72 regarding the extreme risk protection orders and it has two parts to the bill as you know one is to allow a HIPAA exemption for a physician who is a health care provider who believes somebody may be in extreme risk themselves or others and then the second is the reporting information and maybe that's a good place to start since you're trying to work with a national group to get the reporting on these extreme risk protection orders and action yes thank you very much for the opportunity to participate as an introduction for those who don't know me I am a emergency physician at Southwestern Lamont Medical Center in Bennington I also work at Fortress Medical Center in Titzel, Massachusetts I am the immediate past chair of the trauma and injury prevention section of the American College of Emergency Physicians and I participate on two public health committees at the Massachusetts Medical Society which is the publisher of the Journal of Medicine the Committee on Preparedness and the Committee on Violence Intervention and Prevention and I'm testifying as a Vermont citizen in position and I do not represent any organization in the testimony regarding the data collection we have some information in the literature that the effect of the screening of the high risk themselves or public does improve how it outcomes I submitted to your aid last week an article that described some political data on the criticism of the law showing that suicide rates can be decreased by just only those who present the errors themselves or others and what we'd like to be able to accomplish by having information on the cases is to identify the trajectory at risk that the individuals have so that we can better understand what constitutes high risk and more importantly how do we block people back high risk once we identify it this is only possible that we are able to obtain good data to demonstrate that the impact of this law on Vermont's outcomes we have a very high rate of suicide per capita in the state we are about 35% higher than the rest of the country and there are multiple reasons for this but if we can decrease the incidence of suicide we will have a substantial impact on our outcomes and our health expenditures thank you are there any questions about that collection are you concerned at all with the other section that you also suggested maybe you can give us a few comments about your ability to contact law enforcement absolutely so we in part of the same medicine we have obligations to individual health as well as public health and when we identify an individual who we believe to be a serious or imminent threat and that's the language of HIPAA the health insurance portability and accountability act this is what regulates the patient health reality we are allowed under that law to disclose patient information and warn people who may be at risk but the threshold is serious and imminent there aren't some great definitions especially a priori or if a definition is in advance of what it means and so it's very important for us to have a way to notify those who can mitigate a threat when we have a serious concern the penalties for disclosing patient information without their consent are substantial and nobody wants to go and stick their neck out to make a declaration that it's always below imminent and we don't have a definition of imminent and what this law does it allows in other cases of public health identifying some special type of disease or reporting tuberculosis or reporting childhood so identifying could say that we believe a substantial risk is there for intervening this is similar to your reported requirements if a child came in with a broken arm that you developed as a result of a vital act by someone else correct? absolutely and this is an example of how state law can qualify federal law and what's really important and I appreciate much about this law is that it does not mandate reporting by physicians because we don't if this are mandated to report anybody whom we believe to be at risk then we're going to end up in a situation like the New York State Act that has very little impact on health outcomes and a substantial burden to both patients and physicians we require you to make if we drop the bay you'd have to report people that you didn't need to report I believe so what's the New York experience like? so the New York State Act came out I want to say 2014 2013 and that in that law all health care providers who perceived a risk from their patients were mandated to report to the state that person and then the state had a process by which they would I don't know how that person perhaps fits on with in my understanding the law built that law over time that only one to three percent of all the decorations in the disarming of the gangsters person and there were thousands and thousands of decorations I worked in New York State for a period of time doing that doing that paperwork identifying those individuals with incredibly vulnerable not just to physicians but also to patients and I think it's important for us if we're going to be going to the point of making legislation that it should be informed by stakeholders like patients and physicians that the burden is diminished that's really all you have no idea how many people last night had shirts on we had a public hearing last night with a I guess that was one of the issues that was on the shirts the back is right I think it comes from a good place that we wanted to be able to and what this law that you're proposing addresses that we wanted to be able to help those people whom we believe to be aggressive themselves or others we want to do it in a selective smart way that doesn't differentiate between the right or the physicians without disclosing anybody's identity have you had situations where you felt you should be able to report to the law enforcement but haven't been able to yes I've had several of these in a month and I also want to bring your attention there were two two articles from the Mont Degre that I submitted last week one that described that there were 43 aggressive schools in Vermont last year and the other one that described an alleged plot to harm students at Middlebury and what I want to what's the importance to particularly about the that of those aggressive schools 43 whereas physicians and health care providers from the lot may actually be seeing more of them and I know that they are because I've seen these cases myself where we have a person whom we believe to be I just want to tell but we don't have a way of ranking everybody we don't know how to say well it's high risk or imminent risk or super high risk we just don't have a scoring system but we identify with and then we are charged to do something about that and the other one the court from Middlebury describes how one of the alleged perpetrators was then brought to court a medical center after the extremist projection order was was activated for mental health evaluation and this is what happens commonly when people are identified to be a risk themselves or others they're brought to health care by families by friends social workers and not just law enforcement sometimes the only individuals who have information and we have the ability to help these people and we have the ability to help our communities by informing. Doctor, are there any other questions from Dr. Persant? You've been extremely helpful today Doctor, are there any things that you'd like to add? Yes, thank you very much for this opportunity. In the United States and in Vermont, we don't have a public health approach to the problem in Vermont yet and one of the reasons that we don't have adequate research funding is hopeful that this will change with the CDC or NIH but also their opportunities for private investment speaking to the point of data collection once we actually have a plan to decide to address the epidemic of Vermont then the epidemic will be controlled like all the epidemic that we have so it's hopeful that through law we will be able to do this once that we will be able to generate data so that we can understand what risk it is identify those people who are at risk themselves or others and help them to help themselves and to save our society from unnecessary suffering. I appreciate your perspective One of the things you and I talked about is the fact that you are a gun owner you're not able to end gun ownership I am a gun owner I train my kids how to use gun fake weight it's part of our culture but it's pretty much responsibility and that's I think an important value Other questions from Dr. Versari? Hey Dr. thank you so much and thank you for your patience and I was getting to you and thank you for the information and we'll see you back in Bennington soon I hope Thank you Bye He really had a good talk with me too about that I had occasion to visit Bennington I spent Monday night in the neighborhood He's the one that took care of my shoulder when I was in extreme pain and told me I couldn't go on a cruise Oh That was the Friday night we were supposed to leave Saturday morning and that was the day of the cruise Luckily I bought cruise insurance that was like an encounter with Dr. Versari with me Anyhow that concludes the testimony and I will come see you about my owner I'll tell you Mark this up Thank you We've got a number of bills here to discuss maybe I don't know what we're going to do but I think there's been a discussion about various bills on S-22 I have 72 I think there needs to be an amendment on three that we talked about which I think that's the deal I think the rest of it Except for the two people last night that talked about S-72 which I don't think that you and others did Has there been any opposition from any place? I don't believe it's been any strong opposition I think that we heard today from Chris Brown that the Mon Federation Supported Club was not opposing it they didn't say they were in favor of it so they weren't opposing it I understand that certain groups may have posed I don't remember if there were a couple of gun owners who had long said anything in opposition to this I would guess they were in the same boat I want to ask Eric a question in regard to what question is does the use of weapon here could that lead to people attaching an amendment with regard to firearms? Those questions are really for John Wilmer questions that remain as he tried to defer to his office on those things So can I throw something and then if there's a fear of that one way or the other from whatever supports or doesn't support other issues can this be done? Can we get the same result by just writing a letter to the from the committee to the Agency for Human Services and the courts asking them to, because Judge Bruce has said they already have this information and can we get the same result by not having a bill? I think you could except for the part two of the bill I don't think the first section can get that well One of the incidents that he and I talked about privately technically he couldn't contact the police about somebody who was in danger an imminent risk to both himself and others who had a number of firearms somehow but he couldn't contact one or the other Even with Kulakowski when you dealt with that I thought I sorted that out Yeah I thought we did too Maybe we should have asked him why why he couldn't do that I also maybe sounded like an apartment felt more direct I don't really care I mean we've got everyone that I haven't heard any opposition to that Are you opposed? I have been keeping my own counseling till we have a discussion of all what kind of goes together but please don't take my silence as as support for Senator Rogers I actually voted for S1 last year as an amendment on the floor I looked at S22 concerned about said storage I kind of agreed with a lot of the testimony last night about how do you enforce that type of law unless something tragic happens and then I thought there's just one thing what? and I thought maybe I'll take say somebody's own child accidentally hurt themselves would you really want to prosecute that number five Senator Senator can I just look at the paragraph A paragraph A well and I see the presenter by his point and I think this could be used to prosecute somebody but I would to take your question just now I wouldn't be sure the state's attorney can so having a loaded firearm at the event that table isn't correct or in truth and therefore I'm not going to prosecute that because it depends on whether you believe leaving a loaded firearm out where a child could get it is right or wrong it's only if something happens and you can't you're not going to prosecute somebody for leaving a gun out anyway how are you going to know that they're leaving the gun out no I'm just speaking to this so I'm saying it's exposed to danger and danger the health of the child what I'm saying is I believe that there would be a number of states attorneys who would say I'm not going to prosecute a guy because he left which was an argument people made last night there was nothing wrong with having a loaded firearm on your bedside table and if the state's attorney believed that I don't believe they would charge somebody under this unless there's a specific provision that may be illegal to leave the firearm loaded you see what I'm saying because what you're saying is if something happens to the child or if in dangers or his or her health or somebody a child's his or her health then they can be prosecuted under this but they can I'm saying that I believe many people might not get in the currency of our laws and the as we heard last night there's a fairly common idea among gunners that it should be okay to leave a loaded weapon where a child could get it so a state's attorney might say that's not neglect that's not that's a tragic accident and I'm not going to prosecute them with this and they might say the same thing if there's a law that says you have to have it no it doesn't if there's a law that says you can't leave your gun loaded where a kid can get it and you're at work and your kid finds your gun then you're in your life it's very similar to the Karsey argument that takes criminal repeatedly in terms of there's a death in the Karsey and the child is killed and the child is not in the Karsey gets required by law and the question is does the state's attorney charge them? I think it's been different I'm going to take the one case I said hey it's criminal law I said there's a green and a green clause that will bring in many ordinance over being imposed on the law I'm seeing a growing number of cases where people prosecuted for drug and drug children are not detoxed there have been a number of those there have been a number of those I'm I'm visiting and can I speak to this yeah I thought Ruth was impassioned this morning I thought she made a fine case I've heard a lot of testimony this week that leads me to believe probably the safe storage is not ready to move and I would be willing to not believe that piece of S22 I do believe we've heard a compelling testimony about waiting periods and I understand it's not a compelling testimony that doesn't have a compelling opposition because it does but with that said it seems to me that maybe the better focus for the committee is on waiting periods rather than safe storage because I could see a series of votes where I would vote for a bill that did not have safe storage but waiting periods seems to me of those on the table for years to come sure how I'm going to vote for waiting periods at this point I tell you that my sense is that there is not support at this stage for safe storage long and a number of reasons that I brought up so I appreciate it I thought Bill Smith I thought Bill Smith made a good just at the very end that said maybe require every new gun for just to be sold with a safety lock and in the they do oh I don't know what he said he said this thing is a number of I thought he said that we could I think he said they already sold with safety lock and they're $10 so okay I have a pistol that has a safety lock and I'm on it it's a safety safety of multiple fire right sometimes I forget how to do the safety and I'm looking at it I hope you're looking at it in the safety I'm looking at it in the window no not in my life I'm still waiting oh it happens dramatically improved but I had a waiting period I couldn't use it in the tournament so are they all sold with themselves okay I think there's a safety on all I mean there may be old weapons that don't have safety would you like to comment just identify yourself you're talking about two different issues Senator Sears is referring to the safety on the firearm what you're asking about is a mechanism that is sold with every handgun it looks like a padlock it's a cable lock with a cable that goes through it and it fits through the breach so it prevents the firearm from being fired and every new handgun is provided with one of those okay that's what I want to hear picture over there yeah there's a picture and it's in here too yeah um regarding waiting periods we had an email that everybody got and I asked me to make copies and put it as part of the record from a Dr. Kauffman in Berlin and Dr. Kauffman talked about that a waiting period in terms of reducing suicide would not be effective I get his opinion I'm sure we can get other opinions but I was struck by it because he talked about that most suicides are planned and not impossible and I don't know if you've read the email from Dr. Kauffman I haven't printed out yet everybody has a copy of it and let me wonder you know really with impulsive acts and it was I mean I impulsively was on my way back to Florida and was at West Palm Beach airport again there was a certain plane there that I found myself impulsively flipping a bird to airport one I believe that I realized that it was a long way around I get that in with me I did Trump is there it's a big deal so I do yes I do I may need that so I understand impulsive acts but the letter made me wonder is it what a waiting period prevent gun violent suicides we know that we've gotten information from Dr. Kauffman and I think it's clear that firearms are lethal if they're used in a suicide maybe more successful than other people it got me wondering I'm hoping to get information from others about Dr. Kauffman's letter well I would be curious about that I mean I know that and I think I was going to check on the South Dakota thing about the because we did hear that the number of suicides by I think it was the Harvard study number of suicides by firearms decreased but the number of overall suicides did not decrease and so I don't know what that tells me it just tells me that it didn't decrease the number of suicides they just found other methods a number of states put a waiting period going on in handguns Wisconsin just repealed there but I believe theirs was on just handguns Florida is just handguns and then there's a number of states with different time periods from 10 days to 24 hours and I think that the original and my understanding was they were requesting the 24 hour period I believe that they didn't see states but they didn't see that as an issue then so I did ask the question about previous gun owners about whether a waiting period should apply to them and I got a response that said that Andrew Black the families they have but they would consider a suicide person in their family usually take the guns away and lock them up and that they had I got the impression that they didn't know that he was at risk but the answer I got was that they had taken he had a gun and he had it locked up and he didn't have access to it so he went for another one so did they know that he was suicide? I don't think they did but the point they made that the father made was his gun was locked up where he couldn't access it and so he went and that was an argument he made against the idea somehow that he could only affect first time buyers so in other words that Andrew himself had a gun but he couldn't access it his own gun his parents had control of the gun they had control of the key they they only used Andrew and the father only used their guns for a shooting contest or a shooting range part of the practice they weren't I don't believe they were lecturers they were just shooting they had to be in the contest but if I could just speak to the you know John Rogers raised this possibility and you know if there were a way to do it I would certainly consider it I just don't see any way practically speaking in the real world that you could limit a waiting period to people who don't already own the gun so everyone who owns the gun in Vermont which we do not and which all of the words we heard today would fight to the nail if we tried to start so the fact that somebody might have bought a gun at the gun store last week or last year and the person knows them we can't build a wall on that so it seems as though the question is do you have a waiting period for every purchase of a firearm or don't you I guess if people feel that it's too much of a hardship for people who already own guns then they would vote against them for that reason I just can't imagine a compromise where somehow you tarted it to first time buyers because I thought about it in a good amount I just don't see a way to do that which you know John and I actually ended that firearm with me and John there is an overlap and it's that both of us really don't like intrusive government action where it's not necessary so I don't want a database of governors either I would vote against that myself so that leaves me back where I started which is I think a 48 hour waiting period with we tend to have reduced it to just suicide and certainly that's the focus but a lot of states think that there's a cooling off period so it's not just that somebody might kill themselves it's that they're angry they don't have to go with them they go to buy a gun to use on someone else it's not just suicide it could be homicide and the idea is you allow some breathing space of 48 hours and then maybe you don't get either suicide I wasn't sure we were going to have this discussion today but I'll do what I can to chip in here I feel like I've been sold out I mean I had literally busted chops last year on 441 and 221 after having listened to victims advocates clearly telling us about five days after a breakup in domestic violence situations and I went just to this committee several times I went to the governor's office I went to the speaker of the house I went to the caucuses on both sides and I begged and pleaded for us to come to unity universal vote on those two pieces of legislation it seems to me that both pieces of this particular bill are placing obstacles in the way of the very people we were trying to work so hard last time and we're basing it on the assumption that a given number of hours may not shout but may have an impact on a person's decision and when I heard Black's testimony I came away feeling as if they knew ahead of time that there was a problem this was not a complete surprise to them they certainly were able to piece together as a result of his text messages and his social media contacts that there was a long period of time that he was actually contemplating this even to the point where he had said I'm giving myself I don't know what it was I can't remember but it was 36 hours but the bottom line was there was a clear determination on his part to do something so do we have a 48 hour waiting period of 36 to 24 a 10 day how do you predict ahead of time what somebody was determined to end their lives will be the proper obstacle placed in front of them and at the same time doing that we're knowing that we are literally telling those people who might exercise their constitutional right for self-protection that they can't exercise that right unless there's a waiting period of whatever time we determine that has been dispositive and that I'm very troubled by that so frankly I can't support either one of the provisions of this and I should have added that it comes to safe storage a year ago I stood on the floor and I said I've never been a goner I've told you all that now that has changed as a result of a rifle that was handed to us that came from my father and that rifle has been hanging over our doorframe and it's something that we remember and buy and frankly as I read this I would automatically be somebody that's placed in violation of this law I'll tell you I really can reach the point where I say come on and arrest me this is going too far I can't for the life of me support either one of those provisions I don't know where the committee's going to go I guess I'll have to give you a fair warning when I get to the floor it's a subject for conversation we'll be saying the same thing on the floor that I'm saying right now I appreciate that John I don't know what gets to the floor I certainly fear that if we do anything and I've expressed this already that we do anything for me that's 55 of what can happen and if we feel it's the right thing to do about all four bills we feel that of course there's all five bills of the rent to do what we should do and not be fearful of what might happen on the house side or to the floor as long as we have an agreement that whoever on the conference committee something that would pass something it's going to stay in the seventh position and not allow who knows what to be added really comfortable with the senate and the honor see the point that you may be all about waiting here but it's a constitutional way it's not just a purchase of something I'm just thinking that we've had a number of suicides in our area by young men and one was sleeping pills purchased or bought it may be that some of the drug bill some things that are reported as drug bills and so on Eric, as have we in here been found any consequences? I have not seen any cases litigating it I'll keep looking but I've recently been looking at this whether or not those have been challenged on the second level grounds how many states have maybe the states don't have it how many states have it I was going to say it's under 10 but how many states also have in their constitution their right to bear arms do they all I mean a lot of states have different laws that may get made of laws on firearms but two states I believe two states have appealed the way Wisconsin I know Florida presents fire long runs if you show proof that you've passed a hunter education some states are just in yeah so-called Casagrand in terms of your rights and self-reference do you have that right but there needs to be hard to yourself or I was going to say I have a meeting with somebody from the U.S. Census Bureau for whatever that's worth so I actually I don't know I don't know thank you very much we'll figure out what we're going to do