 an amendment to S-55 that Martin has had drafted and I'll walk us through that part of that. Good morning everyone, Lou and Marlon from Legislative Council. And just so everyone is aware, I'm just helping out Eric basically because he's so busy. So sometimes you see Eric, he's the council on matters. Sometimes they see me filling in and we're just doing it because both bodies are considering legislation pertaining to firearms. So I am going to run through a proposed amendment from Representative LaLonde as to S-55. And of course that is the bill that Eric did to walk through for you yesterday. And what this amendment does is it adds five new sections to the bill that Eric described to you yesterday. I'll go through them in the quarter. The first one would be a new section eight and this concerns large capacity ammunition feeding devices and other large capacity magazines. I don't plan to read word for word. I'll go through and describe what's in it but please stop any of you have any questions. Or if you want to slow down and spend a little more time on any of these provisions. It would create a new 13 view state 4021 which would state you see on line seven and eight that a person shall not manufacture, possess or transfer a large capacity, excuse me, ammunition feeding device. And if you jump to page two you'll see the definition of what is a large capacity ammunition feeding device. It is on lines 14 through 20 in subsection E and it states that a large capacity ammunition feeding device means a magazine, belt, drum, feed strip or similar device manufactured after July 1st, 2018 that has a capacity of 10 rounds of ammunition or more. I'm sorry, yes? You may ask a question. I'm just trying to clarify a question. Going through, yeah, with respect to this because it might be on some of the other new criminal companies that are in items that are now if this is passed or are no longer allowed to be possessed. Do any of these sections provide any kind of, what's it called, grandfathering falls or a way to safely get rid of this stuff if you currently have it? Well, it does if you just hold on for one moment I'll get back to that. But yes, here's a grandfather clause. So, and there's also some carve outs that go through those in just a moment. So, the definition on page two and E is based on a magazine or a similar device that has a capacity of or that can be restored or converted to accept more than 10 rounds of ammunition. Is everyone clear on that? Converted, would that be a point of contention about whether you could or could convert? I guess that's beyond the scope of what we're discussing. I don't know if it'd be a point of contention but I think you are correct that it is not just a, for example, like in a magazine somehow could be modified to contain 11 rounds that would fall into this definition. So, that's the definition of what is a large capacity ammunition feeding device. If you jump back to page one, you'll see the penalty of grandfather clause and then some carve outs. So, the penalty is on lines nine and 10 and it says that a person who violates a section shall be in prison for not more than one year or fined not more than $500 or above. So, that's a penalty. The next section in C is the grandfather clause and it says that this section shall not apply to the possession or transfer of any large capacity ammunition feeding device otherwise lawfully possessed on or before the effective date of this action. So, if you have it before let's say July 1st, 2018, the law does not apply to you. Okay. Wayne, did you have a question on that? Yeah, actually it's on page two, on page one in 1819. I'm a little ignorant about some of what these things mean. What does a 22 caliber rimfire and attached tubular, is that like a magazine if you stick in? I mean, I know the 22 rifle. Sure. And actually, I mean, sorry that you answered, but also we do have Mr. Parrot calling in, for Parrot's gun shot, so. Yeah, I think he might be coming in. Oh, great. So anyway, so we will certainly have an expert that can help us a little. So attached tubular, I don't think I can access that. 22 rimfire is just a type of ammunition that is like center fire and center fire. I don't know. I'm sorry. Look later when we're done. I don't know where I can find what that is. So, going to the carve outs which are on page one, in subsection D. It says this, and there should be the title, there should be the word, this section, shell, the word shell should be inserted. Shell not applied to the following, what I call carve outs. On line 15, a large capacity ammunition feeding device manufactured for or transferred to the possession of a U.S. Department of Agency, or any state or department agency or political subdivision. Two, transfer were possessed by state or federal law enforcement officer for legitimate law enforcement purposes, regardless of whether that individual officer is on duty or not. Going to the top of page two, another carve out. Three, transfer to a licensee under a cross reference to the Atomic Energy Act for the purposes of establishing and maintaining security on-site physical protection system or security organization part by federal law. Number four, possessed by an individual who's retired from service with a law enforcement agency after the large capacity ammunition feeding device was transferred to the individual by the agency upon his or her retirement, provided that the individual is not otherwise prohibited from receiving ammunition. Number five, if the device was manufactured, transferred or possessed by a licensed manufacturer or importer for the purpose of testing or experimentation authorized by the U.S. Attorney General. So, you have the ban, the penalty, the grandfather clause, and then those callbacks. I'm just curious, the language of line 17 of page one. We're in page one, section D1, where did that come from? Just because I've never seen political subdivision of a state and I'm wondering what an example of that might be, so just curious. So, political subdivision of a state is a municipality, something like that, it's a government entity within the state of Vermont, for example. So, you have federal, you have state, and then political subdivision state could be city of Brooklyn, et cetera. And so, this would be the large capacity ammunition feeding devices that are possessed by that governmental entity. Many of those might be law enforcement. It's not restricted to that, but that's, I think, the type of thing it's meant to get to. I now can proceed to the second new section, which is section nine, this is on page three. So, we talked about the large capacity ammunition feeding devices. Section nine would ban semi-automatic assault weapons. And it has a similar structure to the section we just went through. It has a new section under title 13, 4022. If you look in lines four and five and eight, it states that a person shall not manufacture, possess, or transfer a semi-automatic assault weapon. And I'll talk about the definitions in a moment. So, this is a prohibition on possession, manufacturer, or transfer. Number two is the penalty. Imprisonment of not more than one year, or fine, not more than $1,000, or both. Then if you look at B, there's a grandfather clause. This section shall not apply to the possession or transfer of a semi-automatic assault weapon, otherwise lawfully possessed on the effective date of this section. And then we get to the definitions. Any questions before I jump to the definitions? Definition begins on line 11, C. And what this does is it breaks down the definition into four types of weapons. So, C1 states as used in this section, semi-automatic assault weapon means line 12 is that first type. A semi-automatic rifle that has an ability to accept a detachable magazine and that has at least one of the following characteristics. And then it lists characteristics such as a pistol grip, a bayonet mount, and some other characteristics. So, a semi-automatic rifle that can take a detachable magazine and has one of these enumerated characteristics fits the definition. If you go to page four, you'll see B, the second type of weapon, a semi-automatic shotgun that has at least one of the following characteristics. A tail-spoping stock, a second hand-grip, a fixed magazine capacity, et cetera. So, once again, it's a type of weapon, semi-automatic shotgun with a list of characteristics. If it has at least one of those, it fits the definition. On line 13 on page four, under C, the third category weapon, a semi-automatic pistol that has an ability to accept a detachable magazine and has at least one of the following characteristics. And once again, it lists those characteristics. So, you have to be able to accept the magazine and have one of these enumerated characteristics. On page five, line 10 in the middle of the page is a fourth category under D, a revolving cylinder shotgun. So, we've had the definition of what constitutes a semi-automatic assault weapon. The next section of this, the next part of this section are the carbide, before it gets to the carbide. Any questions about the definitions? What is the source of the definition? What is the source of which compound? Was it from another state or from past federal? I'm sorry, I can't, I don't know that. It is from another state. I can't remember if it's Connecticut or New York. Because I looked at both of those because both of those have been held by the cycle circuits. Yeah, I just can't remember which of those two states it is. So, the carbide's on page five, starting line 11. So, a semi-automatic assault weapon shall not include, under A, a rifle, shotgun or fistful bat, and it has certain characteristics. For example, it is manually operated by a bolt, has been rendered inoperable, or as an antique. So, these are carbides. Another carbide is on 16 and 17 under B. A semi-automatic rifle that cannot accept a detachable magazine that holds more than five rounds of ammunition. Under C, a semi-automatic shotgun, and then we talked about that earlier, that cannot hold more than five rounds of ammunition in a fixed or detachable magazine. And D, any rifle, firearm or shotgun that was manufactured at least 50 years prior to the effective date of this section. For those of the carbides, that this section would not apply to. Harry. I'm just, Luke, I'm not sure I picked up on that. When you're talking about, I just wanna make sure I'm gonna do the, a semi-automatic rifle that cannot accept a detachable magazine that holds more than five rounds. Now, let's say an M1 carbine, or a 223, and I know I'm probably rattling off stuff that there are guns out there that will accept a 10-round magazine, but they also will accept, and we're not talking about assault-style weapons. Are those guns, just because they can accept a larger round or have the capacity or capabilities of accepting a larger magazine, are those also gonna be found illegal to possess? I would ask this question of Eric also. Okay. Get his input on it. But I would almost, I think I understand what you're asking, but I would sort of flip it. Mark, you're the author of this, or you're the proposer of this, go ahead. I was gonna try to answer it in there. But it says a rifle that cannot accept, so it's not that you have different options, but cannot accept a detachable magazine that holds more than five rounds. So if whatever type of weapon specifically it is, that's an extension, correct, that's a carve out, so we'll not apply. Okay, thank you, and that's why I wasn't sure that... It's correct. Okay. No, and I mean, I will just, I will generally say that I wanna hear from witnesses on this and if there's something that should be modified on this, it's not set in stone whatsoever. So if there's a concern like that, this goes too broad for a particular gun that we shouldn't be trying to reach, then we should modify this. But I think this is a good start, and I think your concern is addressed with respect to the car bolts. I mean, I'd have to look at it again to see if we should look and say, well, what about these particular weapons that they fit into here? That would be a good exercise. Then, that's what I should I proceed? Okay. Well, the next, put the page six, please, the next new section is section 10, and so now we're moving into a slightly different area, which is safe storage. So section 10 would add a new section, title 13, 13 BSA 4023, that states on lines four, five, and six, that a person shall not store or otherwise leave a firearm outside his or her immediate possession or control without having first securely locked the firearm in a safe storage depository or by use of a tamper-resistant mechanical lock, gun lock, that may be an extra word in there, or other device appropriate to that weapon rendered incapable of being fired. So in other words, a person shall not possess or store a firearm unless it's in immediate possession or control, and I think you're familiar with that concept, or if it's outside immediate possession or control, it's securely locked or stored in some manner. So everyone clear of the general principle? Lines nine and 10 is the penalty section. Starting line 11 are the definitions of firearm and safe storage depository. So firearm cross-fractance is a definition of 13DSA 4017D, and if you remember, that is a general definition. It states that a firearm is any weapon which is designed to or which can expel a projectile by action of an explosive. So it's a general definition. Safe storage depository is defined on lines 14 through 17, and it states that a safe storage depository shall mean a safe or other secure container that when locked is incapable of being opened without a key combination or other unlocked mechanism. Any questions about section 10? The next section would be a section 11, which adds a new section to title 13, 13DSA 4024, and this concerns waiting periods. And the key language is on lines three and four and five and it basically states that a person shall not transfer a firearm to another person until 10 days after the completion of the background check. So you go, for example, the FFL, the background check, then there's a 10 day waiting period before you can accept or get a firearm. Any questions about that? And the last section would be section 12, and this is a mandate existing language. So most of this I won't go through. It's existing statute. It concerns the possession of a deadly or dangerous weapon in a school bus, school building, or in school property. And the amendment or the change would be on page eight. And you'll see on lines seven and eight. So this is the card out. And it says that on line four, this section shall not apply to a law enforcement officer. Line six, while engaged in law enforcement duties, and then the new language is on line seven and eight, or a law enforcement officer in possession of concealed firearm in a courtes, and there's a cross-site to federal statute. Basically what this would do is allow an off-duty law enforcement officer to carry a firearm on school grounds. May I ask a question? Okay, go ahead. I'm familiar with this section because that was the limit that I put on our last gun bill, but I see that this is still the own language because I was just gonna have an action on that for a while. Ken, are we able to, because we've already passed it out before, can we also amend this section to be the same as what was in, whatever that bill number was, because this is still the old law and law, six and five? Yes, yes you could do it, yes. Okay, that's what- We would play with the effective days, I think that's what we would have to- Yes. Okay, yeah. So that could get triggered by multiple bills that are moving, but we can certainly modify the language to be the same. Oh, great, thank you. Are there any questions? Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Thanks so much. Thanks for remembering the stories, but not the details. Do we think that the same conundrum was dangerous and deadly weapon as we did in the original 422, that means it could be anything at all, like a baseball bat or a golf club or- Right, so- At which place? Well, the definition- I'm 19. Page eight, number one, 18. I mean, we went through this with 422, we had to just, it just was too broad. Right, and then 221 had a definition. I don't think it was exactly the same line where- It was dangerous. I mean, you can have all kinds of deadly weapons in the school. Right, but are you talking about- Dangerous and deadly. The one about not possessing on the school property. Yeah. So, I mean, the fact that the intent of the injure is in there, I think, so it's existing in law that it's a deadly weapon. I don't know if it's defined elsewhere, but I think- What is it? It's underrated. It's underrated. Yeah, it's underrated. You have a, you bring something that can be considered a deadly weapon on the school property with the intent of injuring someone. They may have wanted to leave that trail abroad. And it is pretty broad because this is a definition for weapons in court in 4,016. And what it says is, dangerous or deadly weapon means any firearm or other weapon, device, instrument, material or substance, whether eminent, I'm sorry, animate or inanimate, which in a manner it is used, or is intended to be used, is known to be capable of producing death or serious bodily injury. That's the definition. So it is rather broad. From the baseball team, we have lots of guns and weapons. Right. It's intended to be used. What is that? It is the intent of the school property. It's intended to be used. Yeah. That's what I'm talking about. Okay, thank you. Glad we got to bring it back. Okay, so we're starting to go around the room and see us here and welcome everybody. I'm sorry, I was late, but hi. I'm not sure. Will Smith, Office for the National Street Sports Foundation. Great, let's see it. I'm going to pull over for a T.J. Donovan. Okay. Gorya Mindell. And Becquia Bell. Stephanie Winters with the Medical Society and the American Academy of Pediatrics. Yeah. I was online. Great. So, Dr. Bell, are you back tonight? Thank you, everybody, for coming in this weather. Yeah. It's a car's off the road this morning. Thank you for having me here today. I am Dr. Becquia Bell. I'm a pediatric critical care physician at the Children's Hospital at EVM. I work in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, so the PICU, and we're the only PICU in the state of Vermont. In addition to my critical care training, I have a degree in public health, and I also have a special interest in injury prevention. So I'm here on behalf of myself, on behalf of the American Academy of Pediatrics Vermont Chapter and the Vermont Medical Society in support of this bill. And I'll just start by saying there's a lot of different amendments where we actually are in support of all of the amendments as are included right now. And I do believe that each amendment can be impactful in reducing gun violence in the state. So as a pediatric critical care doctor, I take care of infants, children, and adolescents who are seriously ill or injured, and not that they need intensive treatment. And so by definition, I take care of children and adolescents who have been injured or killed by firearms. As you know, firearm injury is a public health crisis, and like any public health crisis, there's not one single intervention that we can do to solve it, right? And so with any public health issue, there are multi-faceted approaches that we need to take to help reduce the risk and improve outcomes. So this bill in the amendments included, I think, do that. So we can reduce the risk of those individuals who are at risk of hurting themselves or others, having access to lethal means, and we can improve outcomes by prohibiting the sale of certain types of weapons and ammunition that are known to produce really, really, particularly devastating injury. Children and adolescents who have their lives ahead of them really have the most to lose to gun violence. As pediatricians, we focus a lot on prevention, both prevention of illness, prevention of injury, and as part of that, we talk about prevention of firearm injury. So we talk about things like safe storage, which is included in this bill, and we talk about limiting access to those who might be impulsive, and that can be related to raising the minimum aid, which is also included in this bill. So I'll start a little bit with unintentional shootings. So unintentional shootings of children are oftentimes also by children, and so in those cases, we have the victim, who is a child, whose life is changed, and then also the shooter, who's oftentimes also a child or adolescent, whose life is changed. We have really, really strong evidence that safe storage can change, can really drastically reduce unintentional shootings. In addition, safe storage can really reduce suicide attempts by children and adolescents. So in a study where they looked, the researchers looked at all homes with guns, they took out cases where children and adolescents were shot either via suicide or by an unintentional shooting and compared that group to a group of people who lived in homes with guns, and then they compared how they stored the guns. Locking up the gun was significantly impactful in protecting people from these shootings. So there's actually four things that this study particularly looked at. They looked at locking up the gun, storing it unloaded, storing the ammunition separate from the gun and locking the ammunition. All four of those things independently was protective, and together they had a cumulative effect. The other really interesting part of this study is that again, when they compared these two groups, they found that the group where shootings of children and adolescents had occurred were significantly more likely, actually four and a half times more likely to identify the owner of a gun as an adolescent, so somebody under 20. So there you have the impact of, again, someone under 21 owning the gun and part of that has to do with ensuring things like safe storage is much harder to do if the adolescent actually purchased the gun, and the parent might also not even be aware of the firearm. So the study that you're referencing, is that something you're able to send us? Yeah, yeah, I have the reference here and I can just send you the full, the second of my test result with the link, but I can also just send you the full then. Yeah, sure. So I also take care of children in particularly adolescents who have been victims of assault or who have attempted suicide, and in both of those cases, when a gun is involved, it really changes how much I can help them. So in cases of assault, I've seen cases where teenagers are at a party, they get an argument, what would have probably ended with some broken bones, other injuries that I could really deal with, a gun is involved and that ends in a fatality. When you talk about things like suicide attempts, this is something that I actually see quite a bit. So I do get a lot of adolescents in Vermont who have attempted suicide in a serious enough way that they end up in the ICU. When I get that call about one of these patients, the first thing I need to hear is what did they do? What did they use? Most people who have used a firearm do not even make it to the intensive care unit. The most common method of suicide attempt that I take care of that come to the ICU are intentional injections or poisonings. In the ICU, I can put in breathing tubes, I can breathe for patients, I can help patients heart speed, I can stop it with me as I can put people on dialysis. But gunshot wounds are a totally different story. I've had one patient in my entire career so far who survived a self-inflicted gunshot wound. They're 95% fatal in those cases. And in fact, when you look at methods of completed suicide using firearms is the most common method to complete suicide than when you combine all of the other methods together. So these are really, really fatal acts, fatal methods. And I think some people sort of think, well, the method that people choose is indicative of their intent, and that is actually not the case. So researchers have found that when they've talked to survivors of near lethal suicide attempts that those who use more violent means like firearms are actually acting more impulsively than those who use other methods like ingestions. So they tend to think about the act in a shorter amount of time. When they ask people who survived, tell us the time that elapsed from the moment you decided you were going to attempt suicide and when you did make that attempt. A quarter of survivors said it was five minutes and then another half said less than an hour. So these are young people. These are really impulsive acts. Those who use firearms are less likely to have really planned out the act or to leave suicide notes. So the idea that if someone wants to attempt suicide or they're gonna do it by some method is not at all borne out by the literature. We find that people who attempt suicide, 90% of them do not go on to die by suicide. And when I take care of my patients who have used means other than firearms when they become, when they get better, when they become aware of what happened, I see a mixture of regret and remote, a lot of relief there. And not to say that people don't struggle or people don't then go on to complete suicide. So because of all this, I think it's really important to form us a way that we can restrict lethal access to people who are at risk for hurting themselves or others. I think we all are aware that today is marks of one month from the shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School where an 18-year-old, a 19-year-old killed 17 students and faculty, injured 17 others with firearms that he purchased. In addition, shortly after that, we had this near-missing Vermont at Fairhaven Union where a former student and 18-year-old was also found to have incredibly made threats and also had firearms that he had purchased. And in this discussion about impulsivity and access to lethal weapons, I think it's important to highlight a piece of that after David in that conversation, which I think we've probably all read, but the conversation between the defendant, Jack Sawyer and the young woman who made the report to the authorities because I think this really highlights this idea that access to firearms can really lead to a tragedy. So in this conversation, she says, she's known as juvenile AM in the affidavit. She says, don't you need a license to shoot, Sawyer, not to target practice, to hunt, yeah, a hunting license. Juvenile AM. Oh, maybe for now you should get rid of the shotgun if people are suspicious, just so you're extra in the clear. Sawyer, no, not at all. This is Vermont, like literally everybody has a gun and it's perfectly legal and everything. I just won't tell anybody and I'll lay low about everything even though I don't plan on doing anything bad. I just don't draw attention to myself. Juvenile AM. Yeah, but what if you get impulsive and want to do something bad? If the gun's handy, you're more subject to make a bad decision. So this teenager really understands and has a lot of insight into the combination of impulsivity and access to lethal arms and she is trying to mitigate risk here and trying to reduce the risk of a tragedy. In addition to her, we've seen a lot of really incredible courage and maturity from teenagers here in Vermont, from teenagers across the country on this issue of gun safety and when we listen to them, they say they're scared, they're worried, they're angry, they're speaking out, they're recording these incidents, they're trying to reduce risk here but I think they really shouldn't shoulder this burden alone and we can really help them by doing things that we know can reduce gun violence. Again, there are many different pieces to this bill and many different amendments. I think individually they all can be impactful in reducing gun death and gun injury here in Vermont. So for all these reasons, the Vermont chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics which represents 200 Vermont pediatricians and the Vermont Medical Society which represents over 2,000 Vermont physicians support this bill. Thank you Dr. I want to hear you about the song you're in so I think you should be brought it up and reading it from the affidavit because in the piece that you spoke of though at least the defendant was specific that I mean to do no harm and so there's still, you know, I'm also a defense attorney so I think this is also a very hard case approved because there was no furthering action of any threat. I mean, and if you look even deeper at the defense journal and all the things that you found about there's a lot of stuff. But again, I mean, this is really a mental health concern. And so I'm curious though, and I was going to say also as a pediatrician how do we balance that concept though? Because again, I'm also another had a very much foster care, you know, down with kids with severe trauma with really bad back, you know, horrific backgrounds and such that, you know, I don't, I would hate to see us then figure out ways to target people that really are, especially our youth that are dealing with horrible emotional traumatic and even maybe mental health concerns. And so I mean, how do we properly or better address those concerns? So that way we don't get to the point that then now we're now trying to figure out a way that these kids that fall into the cracks on his feet don't have access to anything that could print themselves or others. Yeah, and I think that your point is really borne out when you read this whole affidavit of this part where he sometimes does talk about, yeah, he talks about the future and then other times he talks about shooting. So again, I think that's even more important that we limit access because this is, again, not somebody, the idea that if someone wants to hurt people in a school, they're gonna do it no matter what. I mean, the methods really matter and what they have access to really matters. And so for somebody like this, and again, just some of the statistics that I mentioned, you know, sometimes a decision is a second decision. The kid gets a bad grade on a test and they use a firearm on themselves. So we don't always know the safest, you know, the American Academy of Pediatrics is really clear that what's safest for kids in terms of reducing firearm injury and death is a home really without any guns. But certainly those things that I mentioned, the safe storage piece that's when it's truly inaccessible can really make a difference. And so a young person who's at risk for all these things, if they can purchase their own firearm and people in the house might not know, if they can't be stored properly in a way that's inaccessible, these are all huge risk factors. I get that, sorry, I'm helping you answer my question, but again, and I'm looking at all of these situations. You know, I mean, there's obviously the evidence of mental health concerns with the young man down in the fairing, but also if you look at the Florida case, this was also a kid that was in foster care at a very young age, you know, had both parents die one at L.S. and say the other one more recently, you know, also had, was autistic and had autism from, diagnosed from 10 up. The thing is, oftentimes though in these, and I would think that he was a pediatrician, also an advocate for youth, you know, troubled youth, where are we telling these kids though? I mean, because again, I think we can all agree, I mean, kids don't just become killers. I mean, you know, there is a breakdown there somewhere. And so how can we better provide for our youth so that they don't get desperate and enacting the ways that are horrific? I mean, that's a huge question and something that as pediatricians, we really work towards when we talk about things and that's not related to this bill, but things like ACEs, access to, you know, healthcare access to mental health, you know, more funding towards these types of things. All of that stuff is really, really important. But again, when I take care of all of these patients, these are all my patients, they all, I think, take care of lots of patients with mental health issues. Again, if there's a gun that's accessible, that totally changes what I can do for them as an intensivist. And there's lots of behavior that's concerning and lots of behavior that kids can do to put themselves at risk, but the gun being there really changes things. And I think that's the piece that we're sort of focused on in this bill. I certainly agree that there's tons of stuff that we can do for kids to help them. I think that kids all over the world are facing some of these same issues, you know, poverty and mental health issues. We have a particular issue here in this country with access to firearms. And that's part of, I think, what we're focused on really right now. And thank you, this is helpful to have you here. Are there, in your experience, or maybe statistically, are there, do you know what the most common type of firearm that produces the injuries that you see in the ICU for kids are, and I mean, maybe it's just the difference between handguns or rifles or what some people call assault rifles or, but are there particular calibers, those things that are most produced? Yeah, I see that. Free kids' use of ICU most often. So, you know, I see both handgun injuries and shotgun injuries. A lot of it is really just about what's available. I personally haven't taken care of patients who are victims of assault-style weapons. So, really, any type of firearm, any type of firearm can be deadly, you know? And then, so when you look at sort of one patient or one victim, any caliber can kill somebody. And then if you're thinking about the potential for multiple victims, I mean, that obviously really stresses any health system. So, if you're talking about weapons or ammunition that would potentially create more victims, I mean, that's going to be really difficult to take care of as well. But there isn't really, I mean, I've seen injuries from all types of guns. And the other question is, I actually don't know whether there are states that have passed some sort of a safe storage law, and I'm wondering if you know and if there are studies that compare sort of states, state-by-state, states that have those kinds of laws and those that don't, and that comparable suicide or gun death from any attack or whatever. Yes. So, typically their virtue is child action, child accessibility prevention, cap laws, right, I was saying that, right? And yes, states that have those laws tend to have fewer unintentional and intentional shootings. And I can try to find that data for you and send it to the committee. Something that sounds like really helpful. But yeah, this is something, I mean, we all know that there's variable data when we're looking at some of these measures and part of it, it probably states have all different types of laws guns across state lines. It's really difficult to really assess the impact. But actually, the safe storage piece has really, actually does have really good data. Martin, are you there? Yeah, this may be out of your belly with what I'll pass you in later. So, on the sale of firearms to minors, we're going to, we have a couple of exemptions or exceptions for that. One for law enforcement, one for members of Vermont, National Guard, we are considering, or I think we may consider an exemption for a youth in the 18, 21 year age bracket who's taken a firearm safety course. And that would be another person who can, in fact, as somebody younger than 21. Do you have any familiarity with those kind of safety courses, any comment on that? Yeah, so what we have data on is actually not quite that, not quite a hunting safety course, but data on safety courses for younger children, somewhere school, like basically up to 18. And those, unfortunately, those courses have not shown any effect on reducing, for instance, a child going and picking up a gun and pulling the trigger. But that's not quite the population that you're talking about. So I think, again, when you're breaking up some of the stuff, I don't know the date on it, but plausibly it could help with an unintentional shooting. But intentional shootings, which would be, for instance, a suicide attempt, any type of course wouldn't have any effect on an intentional shooting, either shooting someone else in an assault or shooting yourself. So let me, you said that you've seen all kinds of different weapons that have been used. But for the suicide attempts and the successful ones, do you have a concept of how often a handgun is used versus a long rifle or a long gun thing? I don't. Since this is brought up, I will look into this and let you know. Again, I think that what's available is what's available. I've seen both. So I don't know the larger national data on that, but I can look into that. Because already, as you probably know, that individuals who are younger than 21 can't purchase a handgun, and what we're talking about in this part is the long guns. And I think it depends also on the part of that country. I think there are, depending on whether people use handgun more than long guns, but there will be a suit. Doctor, you practice at the UVM methods, correct? Have you ever, have you practiced in other states besides Vermont? Yes. Can you kind of give me a comparison or what other states have you practiced in? Massachusetts. But we, you know, go ahead. Do you think that there's more gun violence in Massachusetts than there were in Vermont when we're dealing with adolescents? I can't speak to just looking at what I've seen, because the numbers are small. I do know that in Vermont, suicide by firearm occurs at a much higher rate per population than in surrounding states like Massachusetts. That number I can say for sure. I can't tell you about it. And when I practice in Massachusetts, I practice in Boston. We got patrons from New Hampshire. I don't think I could really give you a really good number on that on my personal experience, but I do know that in Vermont, there's a much higher rate of suicide by firearm. OK, thank you. Thank you, thank you very much. And again, any written testimony or anything else? Yes, I'll send you that. And then, OK, get it. Here you go. Thank you. So my understanding is Japan is coming in? Yeah, he's supposed to come in here. I think he just texted me as an envelope. OK, all right. Why don't we take just a quick stretch break and then we'll move your hand. We do have 22 inches for that. Yeah, right. OK, so before we continue with our witnesses, I just wanted to make a few comments because I was late when we started. In terms of Martin's amendments, those are just something to get a conversation out there. I anticipate that they would have come to us some way or another. So when Martin suggested them, I thought let's just get them out there, let people hear the concepts, and have the conversation from there. So OK, so let's turn to Mr. Barrow. Thank you, so please, Parrow, I'm sorry. So please join us in the witness chair. We do record everything. And yesterday, we were talking about FFLs and background checks, and we had a lot of questions about how it really works in the field. I live in Moreton, so I know of your excellent reputation. So I and others had thought about inviting you in, but you're actually available to come here and personally appreciate that. So I don't know if you've had a chance to see S55 that is a little working on, but then we also just have some good questions about background checks. I don't have any prepared, or whatever. I really have nothing prepared, and I was just handed the update in just a few minutes ago. OK, OK, so there is a spirit section. But then also, if you're curious about, maybe you can walk us through a background check. People are interested in, you know, that there's a form, there's what type of information do you keep? Do you send to the federal government? Do you destroy documents? Would you take them on the phone, or so paper trails? I can walk you through a typical state. We just have to ask you to introduce yourself to the writer. OK, my name is Henry Perrow. I own Perrow's gun shop and police supplies in Waterbury, Vermont. I've been a federally licensed gun dealer for 35 years. I've been a full-time police officer for 37 years also, worked in the city of South Burlington and Waterbury up until just a few months ago. So I can see from the gun dealer side, I can see from the law enforcement side. So a typical firearm sale will start off by the person entering the store choosing the firearm. Depending on the firearm, there's different requirements. The federal requirement right now for a long gun is 18 years old. For a handgun, it's 21 years old. That's a federal law. The person has to positively identify themself. And the easiest way is with a valid Vermont photo driver's license that has their physical address. They can't live in a PO box. If it says PO box, more town Vermont, they have to provide additional documentation, possibly something from the Department of Motor Vehicles. It has to be a state or government issued document that has their physical address on it. So from that point, we take their license, we identify the person by the picture, and we start the federal background check. Right now, we are all computerized. We have laptops. The 4473 is the federal form number that everyone purchasing the firearm has to fill out. We have it on a laptop, just for convenience. It's electronic storage. So what they will do is they will fill out all the information, last name, first name, middle name, physical address, date of birth, physical characteristics, and then answer a series of questions. Are you a fugitive from justice? Are you addicted to a lawful user of narcotics or marijuana? There's a series of questions, checks and balances, and then from there, we go into the next portion of completing the form, and then we transmit it over electronically to the computer that we do the federal background check on. And basically, what we do is repopulate all that information into the federal system, name, date of birth, all the characteristics, and then we transmit it to the FBI. The FBI goes through a series of checks and balances. They have a series of computers. I went to a class on it to understand how it worked. It's pretty interesting. The first computer is absolutely no, this person is denied. If it hits that first computer, it takes it right back, almost instantly, saying denied. If not, it goes into a second series of computers, does some checks and balances in the third series. One second, does it tell you why it's denied? No, that's a privacy issue. And actually, if somebody says no, they're not convicted, or what was the other one? You said they're convicted? Adjudicated, mentally defective, a lawful user. Okay, it's a lawful user, so is all that verified or is there some statement that there's a penalty for? Yes, it's under penalties of perjury. I guess I may have skipped, got ahead of myself. What we do is we print the form once they're completed. We have them review the answers, and then they have to sign it and date it. And there's a paragraph under penalties of perjury that all these are true and correct. So once a person, a good example is with the marijuana bill, that's against the law under federal definition. And it says right on it, are you a lawful user of marijuana? Somebody could have a medical marijuana card and put no, but I believe the state systems, the computers talk, that could be a reason for a denial. And it's also a reason for possible prosecution on the ATF's card because they lied on that form. So once it's printed out, they sign it, they date it, they certify that the answers are true and correct. And then we go to the federal background system where we basically populate all the information that they have supplied, and then that's when they transmit it to the federal government. The federal government will say yes, no, or maybe delay. A yes means they have a clean slate, a no means they found something, but it also means they lied on the form and we have to hold that as evidence. That maybe means maybe the person's name was John Smith and last I knew there was 60 John Smiths in Vermont, meaning putters nationwide. So maybe there's a John Smith in California that's wanted or should be denied, but they're not quite sure. So what they do is they put it on a holding pattern for three business days. And that gives the FBI or the ATF time to do a complete background check on them to pull the actual files. Maybe from VCIC here in Vermont, they could pull some additional information. So they have three business days to do a more thorough background check on a maybe or yes. Roughly, what's the breakdown in your experience running your store between the yes, the no's and the maybe's? I would probably say 90% yes, 8% maybe, and 2% no. And I think one of the biggest reasons we see such a low denial rate is because it's a known fact that criminals don't go to a gun shop knowing they have to identify themselves. When they sign the form, they leave set up in such a way they leave palm prints, which is even a better identification for the federal government. So we see very few no's. And a lot of the no's are maybe his brother stole his ID, went to Canada and drinking and got intoxicated and caused some trouble. And there is a process where the person who receives the denied, he can request why. Yes, identify yourself and he can find out why. And then it says because of 1995 you've gotten a fight with Canada and injured someone. He may have to prove in 1995 he was stationed in Germany in the US military. So there's a process to restore his rights or their rights. So once we do the background check they will come back and ask no where denied and then from there we can actually sell and transfer the firearm. Yeah, so all of this is on computer happens almost instantaneously. I mean, it happens within about two minutes. Yes. Okay, and so the three day waiting period then buys only to the maybes, is that correct? Yes. So the one come back, yes. You can sell the gun and move on. Yes. So, I've heard since we've started talking about this I've gotten mixed messages about where information is stored, what store, how long is it kept. So can you tell us what information you keep, what information the federal government, you know, NICS keeps if any. Well, I can hear, I can speak to my business and federal law. Federal law mandates that I keep my records. So the first gun I sold in 1983 I can tell you who bought it and the serial number. I have cases upon cases of federal forms and federal bound books that everything is a check and balance it when we receive the firearm we have positive identification of who we received it from. On the disposition side who it went to there's a transaction serial number where it may say 45-83 meaning it was the 45th gun I sold in 1983. I can go downstairs, pull the 1983 and pull 45-83 and it has all the information. So I keep those until I go out of business. Once I go out of business they have to be sent to the ATF and there's a special address and they're stored somewhere and I'm not familiar with that process but the records are still available. So eventually, so until you send them, go out of business and send them to the ATF is there one of the questions we had the other day was whether there was a central storage of that information about? No, there's no central storage in the sense that all the gun dealers in Vermont would have one place. Yeah, one of that, I think. Each individual dealer is responsible for his own storage and the safekeeping of these records. Under Vermont law, under federal law they can come in pretty much anytime. Under Vermont law, any law enforcement officer upon demand can look at my records if they need it to trace a firearm. So they have to be kept on the premise. So clarify questions. So they're kept on the premise in paper form but if I was following what you were saying they've already been, the information that's on the form is that being uploaded to the federal database as well like this entire form or is it just sort of the results? Like in other words, I think that's what we started getting at the, is what's kept in the store different. How does it differ? How does it differ from what's kept in the federal database? In the federal database, what happens is when I transmit your name, date of birth, all your information, that is stored through the federal government and I'm not quite sure of the process. It's giving, once the background check comes back we will receive a transaction almost like a credit card approval code that we put on that form. So we can go back and pull a form. It will have this transaction number. The ATF can pull that transaction number and do a check and balance across the board. So how they store, I couldn't testify to. I don't really know. Look, I'm sorry, I don't mean to suck up your time here but like for example, I pulled up the form now and I'm looking at F and it's a question saying have you ever been adjudicated as a mental defective or have you ever been committed to a mental institution? And I've seen media reports and I don't know if they're accurate or not about there being discrepancies between these paper forms that are kept in the possession of business, FLLs and then the errors that are in the federal rate and apparently a couple of years ago there was an uploading of five or 600 new entries from Vermont. So I guess what I'm trying to get at particularly when it gets to mental health issues and perhaps more sensitive information is how reliable is that and is it more reliable in the paper form in the business or in the federal form or am I making a false distinction? Well, it's a replication. So there's the paper form which will be signed. That is evidence in a crime that you lied on this form so that will be held differently but the electronic version is I believe for their records for quick easy access. They could call me up and any day say, Henry did you sell a gun to this person and I can go into my database I go, yes, pull the form, we're on our way. And it does happen occasionally. So the ATF will show up and they will take the form and put it in plastic, mark it as evidence because it has that person's fingerprints on it which is a very good positive identification even if he said, well somebody stole my ID and bought it with a firearm. Why are your fingerprints and palm prints all over the form? So that's stored at my location. On the federal side, it's electronic. It has the transaction number that they can relate back to the specific form and it will have the information that I provide. On the mental health, that's that is whatever the state of Vermont provides. And I know there was an issue a few years ago about Vermont not wanting to provide the mental health status. So it's whatever the state of Vermont provides is what is in the federal database. And have you seen a change? Like this article I'm thinking of referenced a couple of years ago, I suppose an upgrade. In your 35 years, have you seen an improvement in terms of, or I'll just be curious what the state of with the computer systems, the way they are, the power, absolutely. And like I had expressed before, I went to a seminar from the guy who was in charge of the national computer system out of West Virginia. And it was good for me to understand when you had entered what happens. So yes. So I know who you've been, Gary. I think my question got kind of answered and addressed in the course of it. Gary. I kind of think that my question probably got the answer but I just want to clarify it. When it comes to the FBI records, I'm assuming that a part of their record database will be the outcome of the checks to their NCIC checks and everything else. Am I correct in that subject? So it will have the purchaser's name data for all his information. And it will have the status. Did the FBI approve it or deny it? And then a transaction number. Thank you. Yep. So you've been doing this for 35 years. Did you see any change when the Brady Bill got passed or how did that change your situation, your habits? When the Brady Bill was passed, it did change the way we had to do business. Back then, nothing was computerized. So we had to send our forms to, I believe, Kevin McLaughlin of Chittin County. I think he was the point of contact back then. And then he would do the background because law enforcement had access to the computers that we now have. So that would only change without the stamp except you had to send it to somebody. We had to send it when we had their transfer. And I can't remember if we faxed them or, I think we faxed them, but we... You still had to keep all your records from when they were found? Absolutely. So they could trace it back over there? Yes. I'm curious, have you completed your testimony as far as how the record checks work and stuff like that? Because if you have, I've got three or four different questions for you. I, unless someone has the information, I've got to testify. Everything I've been asked. I'm not sure if I can volunteer or useful information, but in this bill that we're taking up, that's 55, there's the expanded background checks on basically point-to-point sales, me selling to Jants and whatever. Will those have a background checks in your opinion? Are they beneficial? I don't believe they're gonna be beneficial because I don't see any way to track what's going on. There's, if you wanna give your son a gun and you just do it, how is anybody gonna know? There's no checks in balance. And the thing, I did an interview with WCAX last week and I said, show me statistics where this is a problem. And even the WCAX reporter agreed. There's no statistics. There's nothing to say this is gonna change anything. If, and again, in this law talks about, again, I'm gonna use the term point-to-point, a person-to-person sales. They have to go to an FFL and do the paperwork. Now, will you or any FFLs that you're aware of participate in that program? I would like to see the bill, if it gets passed and signed before I comment on that. There's a lot of variables. My liability insurance, as you can imagine, is horrendous as it is. A lot of it is based on exposure of the number of firearms that I transfer, obviously, because the higher the number, the more liability or exposure for something. So if it becomes such a burden that my insurance company drops me like they did a couple of years ago, just because that becomes an issue. So I'm not quite sure how to comment on that. If it becomes a burden that an FFL holder, all of a sudden receives a $10,000 a year increase in his liability insurance, I wouldn't do it. I'll not follow up on that. Go ahead. But I haven't got a couple other questions. I wanna stay on that just so I don't worry about it. So then, are you aware, though, then under just your agreement with the feds and being a dealer and doing those, can you, are you able to say yes or no? So again, can you say I will only do the background checks for guns that I sell, not these police? Absolutely. I can deny any person a transfer of a firearm for any reason. If I don't like your blue suit, I can say. Bring a black one next time. Yeah. Have you done that before? Yes, for cause. Yes. I did not even know the National Center would most likely approve it. Yes, I have. Okay. I wonder about the circumstances. When the hair stands up on the back of your neck, or the back of my neck, I take a step back. I'm a police officer in state. Police officer in state. But just a good businessman. You know, I don't want to sell a firearm to someone who I think may harm themselves or someone else. Somebody comes in, there's a lot of, I don't even want to say law enforcement clues, but somebody comes in, they don't know what they're doing. It just doesn't seem right. I think many times I have said, well, you're on the leg. And so I told a little white lie. They may have been proved, I told a little white lie. And I just, you know, sit back and kind of look at everything I talk to them. I try to get more information out. And sometimes they actually say, you know, yeah, you're right, I guess I don't need a firearm and they'll leave, so. But that's me. Okay, I've got a couple other quick questions. Sorry. Okay, but I have to agree with you. 32 years in law enforcement and a supervisor once upon a time said, if you're in law enforcement that long, you should have the uncanny ability to figure things out like that, if it doesn't pass a sniff test, you might want to back up a little bit. It's a little bit. But what's your opinion, and we have an amendment that was proposed to us today on a 10 day waiting period. I'll read it to you. Our person shall not transfer the firearms with no person until 10 days. After completion of the background check required under 18 USC 192 S, what's your opinion of that? My opinion is, I haven't read the entire bill over, but I would put money on it right now, that everything in here is skewed toward the law-abiding citizen. And there's probably nothing in here that's skewed toward the criminal. Once again, these are law-abiding people coming in exercising their second amendment right, criminals do not come in to gun shops and identify themselves. That's the bottom line. I don't know, 8F Traces, how many can show that a drug dealer out of Holyoke came in and bought a firearm, identified himself, brought the firearm back and traded it for heroin? I'd like to see how many statistics. I don't think there is any. It just doesn't make any sense. So once again, we are burdening law-abiding citizens, taxpayers, for something that I don't even see any statistics with law-abiding citizens are doing something within that 10-day window. So I don't see it's gonna have any effect. I'm done. Thank you. You just hand me that. That's the parallel. That's the parallel. Here's a copy of that. Yeah, make sure they are. So the waiting period, the concept of other places that have had a waiting period is not that this is gonna keep a criminal from obtaining the known criminal, somebody who's already a criminal. Of course, the concept is that it's a cooling off period. It is somebody being suicidal that doesn't buy the gun from you, so buys it from somebody else who doesn't have that hair stick up in their head, or it's somebody who purchases it and with some intent to use it to harm other, on more of an impulse. And it's really, it's to reduce the concept of impulsivity. I just wanna make it clear that I don't think this is aimed at keeping guns out of the hands of criminals, it's to have a cooling off period. And I don't know if you wanna comment on that, but I just wanna make it clear. And I do understand that concept. I just, yeah, we're a hunting state. Has there been suicides? Absolutely. My personal belief is that if somebody has a mental health issue and their intent is to harm themselves, that is just one avenue and there's so many other avenues. The other question I had, just the scenario and I want to have you comment on it. So for the broader background check, so you have sold a gun to an individual, went through the background check, it was fine. Now this individual, if he wants to, or she wants to give it to their son, that's actually fine. You don't have to go through the background check. That's an exemption for this, it's a family matter. But if he wants to sell it to somebody else, puts it on Craigslist or whatever, and he gets a call from somebody. And the person decides, the gun owner decides, well, I'm not going to go through that hassle and this guy shows up and gets the gun. And that is subsequently used in a crime. So at that point, the ATF or law enforcement, presumably they could go, they have the gun, let's say, and they have a serial number and they decide they want to try to track it down to where the source goes. So they could come to you, right, and find out that you sold that gun in whatever date to someone's son. Is that only if they have that information? What information? That I did the transfer. Right, but how, I mean, right. But they could potentially go to the various gun, I mean, it could be in the community, let's say, but they could find out who you sold. And my point is that from the records that you've kept, they can tell who they've sold the initial buyer of the gun from you. They have the serial number they know and they track it down to whatever efforts to. One of the issues is with the older guns, the old 30s, the stuff that's been in the family has been in circulation. Is the ATF could find a 3030 out of crime scene. They could call Winchester and say, where did this gun go? And they have all the paperwork. So they could know that it goes to your shop and then they go to your shop, find out what goes to this person. Then presumably, if it's within the time period, law enforcement could go to that person who bought the gun from you and say, hey, have you sold this gun to somebody else? And they could follow, you answer the question I had. But see, there's so many firearms that are not in the system right now that it's gonna be, there's no trace in that firearm, even unless they know exactly who sold it. So they go to every gun dealer in Vermont, they say, I didn't sell it. They can trace the gun back to a manufacturer or trace the gun back to a dealer that went out of business in 1975 and the records are destroyed and all the whatever. And then that guy, even if they find that guy who bought it brand new in 1975 from Woolworths, you know, say, ah, I gave it to my son. And it just, there's no tracking it on the older firearms. Sure, on the older firearms. Yeah, all right. So, the other, I just wanted you to, if you could, I don't know if you've had a chance to look at the section regarding a ban on assault, semi-automatic assault weapons. I don't know if you had a chance to look at that. Well, I have it, but that's on page three. If you wanna do it answering Martin's question first or if you wanna do it beforehand, I would like to have a very small, short, gun 101, assault weapon, semi-automatic, on the axle. I can tell the difference in all those. And that kind of, the question, I have a couple of questions I have about this definition because it doesn't list gun actual models or anything like that. Some states actually have assault weapon vans and main models. This is naming characteristics. And the question I would have and certainly if you did that tutorial for all of us, that would be great. But specifically is, with this definition, would you understand what would qualify as an assault weapon and what would not qualify as an assault weapon? And if it's the latter, if you could give me more input on how one would properly define and review what an assault weapon is. Under federal definition, which is what we have to go by, being licensed, is an assault weapon came from a loosely translated German assault rifle which was a submachine gun. Only automatic that you use in war. Those have been heavily, heavily regulated since 1933, 34. People cannot possess them without a lot of retake. So to use a term assault rifles, it's loosely defined by whoever is writing the bill and what they would like to see in it. So there is no federal definition. And that's what we deal with every day. We have to define what type of firearm using a set of known characteristics within the federal definition. So a assault rifle is a tough one to define. It can be defined by whatever you want to say it is and then set up these parameters. So then you would know what a firearm would meet these parameters and which would. Yeah, I would by reading these definitions. So yeah, that was my main question. You may not agree with the definitions in here but that was my main question is to be able to understand what gun would be in this category and which wouldn't. So I turn it over to Lynn who wants to kind of go a little broader. Yeah, the question is is you hear people say assault weapon and then there's semi-automatic and there's automatic and my understanding is that the federal government banned something in 1994 and then it expired in 2004. And statistics on crime went up during that period. From 94 to 2000. 2004 and one of the largest tragedies. Okay, during the period of 94 to 2004. Yes, crime actually, violent crime went up during the ban. So can you explain what the differences between these things? I mean assault weapon is a semi-automatic is a. An assault rifle is a solely automatic and it's a semi-automatic. It's like atomic. Yes. What's the difference between that and the other two? The biggest difference is how they fire. A assault rifle, you hold the trigger, you hold the trigger down and it just continues to fire until you release the trigger. The trigger. That is a true assault. Automatic weapon. Automatic weapon, you see in the news in Iraq, you have to understand and absolutely. And then a semi-automatic. A semi-automatic is you pull the trigger, it fires, the bolt will come open, it will throw the empty shell out and then it will load a new one. You release the trigger and then pull it and it starts that cycle again. So all automatic, you just hold it and it just goes. Just goes. The semi-automatic, you have to pull and stop. Yes, you pull and pull each one. That's very related. So thank you for that description, it's helpful. So my son has a semi-automatic rifle. It's a semi-automatic rifle. It doesn't have any of the things that are listed here. But it is semi-automatic and he brings it over from shooting things with it. Is there any difference in the firing capacity of between that rifle and what's being described here as a semi-automatic assault weapon? Do you know what I'm asking? It's a semi-automatic rifle. It does not have a tripod or a flash press or this. It's a semi-automatic firearm. End of story. A telescoping stock does nothing to it. Bayonet lug does nothing to it. Doesn't make it more dangerous. It doesn't do anything to the firing cycle. It doesn't change it. And I'm just reading here fairly quickly. One of the popular guns that we sell is a camouflaged youth turkey gun for youngsters who would like to get into turkey hunting. And depending on how far this goes, it does have a holding or telescoping stock for the use, it makes it adjustable. I'm assuming you're talking about a shotgun. Yes, a shotgun. And isn't there a section in here specifically? Maybe I haven't gone to that. I'm just gonna read you a little. Quickly as we speak. I appreciate you bringing it up. One of my questions was is I think, is there now a limit on the magazine size for a semi-automatic? I thought it was, you could only have three. For hunting, yes. So, but that's specifically for hunting. So if you kept it at home and then you said you wanted to keep it for some other reason, there's not a limit on the size of the magazine. No. So under your definition, would in AR-15 be considered an assault weapon? Under my definition? No. So I'm not sure if you've had a chance to look through any of the other proposals if you have any other comments about it. Who stayed there? I mean, I'm sorry to get you. We're not gonna ask them the question. I just wanna stay where we're at. Before you talk about it. Sure, sure. Because there was a question a little while ago about, also did we talk about the 10-day winning period? And even after you went to the background check for that queen off period. And what I thought might be helpful, because again, since you are a dealer and one of the larger dealers in Vermont, I'm just curious about personal practices. Like for me, again, just as a novice someone, I don't personally only use my arms, however, I would assume that let's say like before hunting season, you have enough people that go buy a gun. They think, okay, it's nice that I didn't go get a gun. Right up until the day before. I guess that's what I'm trying to get at. So you really see people, if they need it for a certain activity or whatever, really buying two, three weeks out, or do they do it more before the event? A lot of times with the hunting industry, we bring in so much money for the state that a lot of it is, I wanna say impulse, maybe if mother, son comes in, next thing you know, dad, I'd really like this. I'd like to go deer hunting with you, and it's such a tradition. It could be the Thursday before the start of deer hunting. So we do see sales like that. We do run specialties that we come to firearms ammunition, and you know, you try to make money when you can. Thank you. Sir, a couple other questions. In the heart of the bill, the S-55 passed by the Senate, at the last page, there's a sale of firearms to minors, and there's been some discussion about adding an exemption, another exception. Right now there's a couple exceptions in subsection B. It's on the last page of not the amendment from the CDF. Here. There are two exceptions right now. We've been talking about adding an exception that if an individual would otherwise not be allowed to get a firearm under this provision, if they took a firearm, a state-certified firearm safety course, and they had successfully passed that. Are you familiar with the firearm safety courses? The hunter safety course? Yes. And how much, as far as safe handling of a firearm is involved in that course? I would say probably 90% of it is, it's all about being safe, not in your target. Are you able to kind of just basically explain that course for us? Is that something you're interested in? I'm not a certified instructor, but I've been around long enough where there's two portions. You have the handbook, which walks you through a lot of the safety aspects. It will walk you through the definitions, what type of firearm, simple things you never point, a firearm at anything unless you intend to shoot it. So it goes through the whole safety aspect. It's geared for the younger hunters. And then after that, they have a practical in which they have to load a firearm and take some shots and prove that they are going to be a safe hunter before they're issued their hunter safety card. So is it a requirement to get a hunting license even after you're 18 to have gone through that course? I know there are exceptions, because I got my hunting license in Michigan and I was able to get it here. So there is exceptions. If you're 19-year-old and you want to start hunting, you want to buy a gun. You would have to take the hunter safety card or provide a hunting license in another state to play with what you did. Right, okay. The other question I am going to take advantage of the fact that you're a retired law enforcement officer. I mean, this is something that Gary and I have talked about and he's interested in as well, but I don't want Gary to have to testify so I'm going to ask him. Gladly. So, if you can go to my other amendment, the representative amendment, and if you can go to page seven and eight. So, currently firearms are banned on school grounds, but there are exceptions. One is a law enforcement officer while engaged in law enforcement duties. This amendment adds a provision that essentially will an off-duty, currently employed law enforcement officer to also be an example that they can carry on school property. What I think Gary and I have talked about is whether that should be expanded to a retired law enforcement officer. And if you could tell me what kind of certification or ongoing training, I know Gary mentioned, maybe you should ask the question. I'm actually, I'm going to just expand a little bit. Under 18 USC 922G, we're a retired law enforcement officer. A law enforcement safety actor. Exactly. Exactly. In my, we talked about increased school security. And actually, I'm writing up to having them right up in the amendment right now to add those folks as being able to obtain employment in school systems as long as they're qualified. They get their regular certification and meet some minimal requirements. But so basically, what's your initial thought on adding that to a bill to enhance school safety? And I also just wanted to understand what that's annual certification process is and such if you could. You can then turn your eyes off. Okay, last time I wanted to give you an actual answer. Well, it's going to be up to the certifying agency. I just retired, there's certain requirements to retire. You have to have, I believe it's 12 years, I believe 12 years in good standings and good, you left under good circumstances. Well, in Waterbury, they dissolved the department. So I'm certified now to carry it nationwide because I'm covered under that bill. Before we retired out of Waterbury, we were given a, I call it an HR 218 identification card, which will have my name, my date of birth, and that a certification on it is that I have qualified and I am certified under this bill, that HR 218 bill to carry nationwide. So I would say absolutely that should be expanded. I just, I don't want to feel special, but if somebody can legally carry a firearm, I wouldn't have a problem with a law-abiding citizen carrying a firearm, a good guy with a firearm who will stop a bad guy any day. I don't necessarily agree with that, but it's mainly somebody who has the extra thing is a law enforcement officer, either on duty, off duty, or retired, and that raises to kind of a different level of... I'd like to just add one additional thing to that, is the certification course is mandated by either the agency that you were retired from or the state, like again, I go to Pittsburgh every year to get certified, and it's a state course. The same course that folks of the law enforcement officer throughout the state have to do to be certified, that's a course I have to take on. So we would take the same course that an active trooper would take to qualify. So we keep our proficiency levels up. I can learn just the clarification, have you certified that you need the card and you have to have your credentials or whatever to prove that you are a retired law enforcement. That's all the questions that I have. Can we move in then, Eric? Just curious, can you carry that on a train as well? Just curious. The credentials? Yeah. Okay, okay. Okay. Well, there's an extra level, there's an extra level of training to carry on. As far as retirement, retired? Ooh. No, because, yeah. I used to carry armed all the time when I was working for a living. Anywhere that I went, I was actually carrying on the plane, just like a federal sky-martial would. Right. Okay. Since retirement, no. So, here's a question that was brought to my attention. Somebody was sketching out a scenario where rather than go to an FLL, they would prefer, sorry, FLL. Federal Firearms Licensee. Ah, I'll tell you what you're saying, is license and licensee, right? Yeah, it's just interesting. All right, so they decide they want to make a greater profit and they wanna do a person-to-person transfer. And let's suppose they have a collection of firearms, 50 of them. And let's say that this bill were to pass and there were these requirements about background checks. Do you have to do, or maybe that's even a question for now, do you have to do a 4473 for each firearm and do the pay the background check fee for each firearm or is there a batching that happens? There is no federal fee to access the federal computer. That is a fee that's put on by the FFL holder. Because of the liability issue. So if somebody, if the bill was passed and I decided to do it after reading it, whatever that fee is, would be times the number of firearms. So if somebody wanting to transfer a collection of 50 firearms and redeem the fee is $25 or $50 per firearm, that's, it's per firearm. Because that spikes my insurance rate. It's not one back, it would be one background check, but there's no cost for the background check. The cost is the labor of me taking this firearm in and keeping the records, computerizing everything, keeping the forms and the increased liability. That's what the fee would be. Do you have to physically have that, let's say there were 50 in the collection, do you have to have all 50 brought to the FFL? Absolutely. You do. You can't, I can't sell a firearm, that's not. I should say I can't transfer. Usually we talk about selling. We can't sell a firearm that lets us on the premise. And it's in our books and it's in our computer system and we're doing a background check on the spot. So, 50 firearms would have to come in. And in a gun show setting, I've also been told that all the folks who are FFLs there, they're doing their background checks in Vermont at gun shows currently, is that accurate? Absolutely. Right, but the private sales that would occur at the gun shows would, if you go to exit, let's say you're at the very auditorium and you go to exit the very auditorium, do you have to go through anything people have said they're security guards at the exits? I've not been to one, but how does that process work? Could you describe it? First off, we're kind of leaning into the gun show loophole, which I've said many, many times there's no such thing. Federal law mandates, if you sell guns for profit, you devote time, energy and money, you're a dealer. If you're a dealer, you must follow A, D and C, meaning license, collect sales tax, have a business. So, someone's setting up at a table at the very gun show and selling firearms, did they devote time, energy and money to the selling of firearms? And the answer is gonna be yes. So, they need to have a license. So, there's really no loophole. Last year, the computer, the state, the national computer went down at the very gun show and I'm a vendor there, I'm one of the anchors. And jokingly, I went through, yelling, hey, anybody know how to do the gun show loophole because the computer's down, everybody was laughing because there's no such thing. It's either legal or it's illegal. And if it's illegal, why aren't we having the prosecution? But the folks, okay, so the folks who followed or that definition, that would exclude, let's say you have a gun that you want to sell for whatever reason, you don't feel like going with Craigslist, you'd rather go to the Barrier Autorium. You don't have to go through that process there. If I'm there and I'm not at a booth or, and I don't know also who has access to, can anyone who sets up, the term I've heard before is tabletop, anyone who's setting up at the Barrier Autorium can get access to run these checks? No, they have to be a dealer. They do have to be the dealer. But you have to be a dealer to sell firearms for a profit. But there's different categories of people in that auditorium that are doing different practices in the same location, is that right? Yes, you have the Vermont Trappers Association, they're promoting the trapping, no license need. You have the Practical Pistol Shooters Association, they're trying to recruit members to shoot targets. It's when you buy and sell firearms for a profit, you must have a federal license end of story. What Barry City did, they took it one step further and they created a city ordinance, no private gun sales on city property. So the person walking into the very gun show and selling a firearm privately on city property would be in violation. But outside of Barry, a private person walking into a gun show in another location in Vermont would not be in violation. Would not be in violation. And just curious, I'm also curious, in your business, what percentage and has it shifted over time that are, I guess the term assault style for lack of a better, what is the percentage of sales and have you seen more shift towards the assault style weaponry compared to the past and what's the breakdown look like? We're gonna, I'm gonna start calling modern sporting rifles because that's what gun dealers call them, not to confuse them with machine guns. We have seen an increase and the modern sporting rifle is probably one of the most popular firearms in the country. It's fun to shoot, you can shoot targets, you can hunt with it, you can do all these different things. It's no different than any other semi-automatic rifle or shotgun, it seems like the government, federal and state are discriminating on looks because these firearms that you keep putting in these bills are black and according to some people are evil looking. Well, we haven't been able to define evil looking but it seems to be, a black firearm with a plastic stock that people see in movies which are not the same firearm the ones you see in the movies are fully automatic machine guns. The six o'clock news with Afghanistan, Iraq, those are machine guns, we don't sell machine guns. We sell semi-automatic firearms just like this gentleman here who said his son has one. Maybe it has a wooden stock. So if we replace the black plastic with wood, is that okay? Well, I think that's why the bill is currently written, tries to avoid that, but so this change, so there has been an increase in our, is it more profitable to sell your terms of modern sporting rifles? Is there a higher profit one? No. Compared to more traditional ones? Profit margins are the same on a long gun or a firearm leadership system. Yeah, when you talk about the very gun show and the different gun shows, very has an ordinance. Very has an ordinance. So when you sign up to set up a table and go under this thing, who enforces this requirement for an FFL? The promoter of the show. Under federal law, when I show up at the very gun show and I have 18 tables, I have to have a copy of my license and a copy of my Vermont sales tax on my table to prove I'm a legitimate firearms dealer. And if the promoter goes through the show and somebody has, now they can sell antiques pre 1898 under federal definition is not a firearm. So they can sell antiques. And there's a lot of people who deal in antiques and cowboy and civil war stuff. And that's okay because it doesn't meet the definition of a firearm. So the promoter will go through. And obviously, I know the promoters, but they would, if there was a new vendor, where's your license? I don't have one. So they have been doing a good job of policing themselves, which I applaud because if you're breaking federal law, I don't want to be set up next to you. And I think you've got to touch upon more because again, I was gonna, if you're gonna more present Jess's question because how I understood you answer before about Barry, they would just separate with that specific ordinance, but I guess I'm just gonna be clear. Are you aware of any gun shows in Vermont that do allow private sales without a license? I mean, I'm getting I just, or are you, or did each private show define a private sale? Somebody spending 50 bucks on a table and setting up with firearms? Yes. I don't know, but if they are, it's a federal violation. So it's kind of a loop point here. It's a federal violation called the ATF, have them prosecuted. Pretty funny, who they are at these other shows are trying to enforce that. I mean, as you said, they just pick you out and bury, or who's the person picking new vendors there that wouldn't have a license? Well, it should be up to the promoter of the gun show. Because my feeling would be that if the promoter of the gun show walked by and saw him with no license selling modern firearms, that would put him at some type of a liability if something were to happen. So as a promoter, I would think he would wanna shut that practice down, knowing is a violation of federal law instantly. So I'm hoping... Have you ever seen that happen though? Have you ever seen someone analyzing if you're down? Yes. I attend two gun shows a year. The Barry Gun Show and the Morrisville, which has now been moved to the Fairgrounds. They're the two largest gun shows in Vermont. There's a couple little break-offs I don't attend to. Both of them have sent out emails with the tables when you sign up. You must have a federal license to sell modern firearms. They're reinforcing it now. And it's probably because of the liability attached that they just don't want that liability. Maybe some other states, I don't know. I don't care about other states. But in Vermont, I don't believe it's happening. There's a gun show this weekend at the Fairgrounds and I know the ATF will be there. At the Expo Center? At the Expo Center, the ATF will be there. So I want to go back to you're talking a little bit about the insurance liability. I just want to make sure I'm clear on where the liability rises from. Is it the fact that you've done the background check or is it when you're in possession of the firearms? Well, the liability is kind of a two-part. Kind of a two-part. If I sell 100 guns a year, my liability insurance might be $500. If I sell $10,000 a year, it could be $25,000 because my exposure is so much greater. The exposure to a possible incident. Maybe the firearm would be misused and we all know nobody takes responsibility for their own actions, you have to blame other people. So somehow it would come back that I should have known better. Even though the FBI said he's a good guy. So somehow they would find an attorney to sue me. The other liability portion is when I buy a firearm, and it goes into my system, before it goes out for sale on my rack, I do a safety check. Well, I do it before I buy it. Whereas that person bringing in 50 firearms or bringing in, I don't do any type of it because it's just a transfer. So does that put me at a greater liability because I didn't check that the firearm was safe like I do mine? If somebody were, if I were to transfer a firearm on a private sector and that firearm blew up, whose responsibility is it? Must be mine. I did the transfer. The guy who sold it privately and we did the transfer, I didn't know him. This guy's an expert, he should have known. I think I was gonna blow up if I had shot it. You know, so that's where the more firearms transferred is the higher exposure, the higher liability insurance. Tell me again the date after which or before when should we consider an antique and we don't? 1898. That's the federal definition. Okay. Sorry. Yeah. So, well I have two questions. One, in the bill in S-55, I've written, I think the operative sentence that I'm gonna ask about here is an unlicensed person shall not transfer a firearm to another unlicensed person in the last one and then talks back once to the background check. So if they just say, if the bill just says firearm, does that sweep in even things that are not considered firearms by the federal government? Does that broadly, does that work? I have to say no. If it says firearm, I think we would revert back to the federal definition of what is a firearm. Okay. So and the reason I'm asking it is another member, I'm seeing it the other day, and said they have one of their constituencies and I don't know, I don't know, anti-steroid, I think, and they sometimes buy whole states and sometimes within that is a collection of guns. My impression was that sometimes they are able to just sell those without, presently, without any kind of a background check. And I, again, my impression was that it was because they were antiques and they're not licensed. They don't have a, they don't have a house check. And that they were afraid that this would change that for them, that they would no longer be allowed. So your impression is that this, this would not change that. Well, unless the state of Vermont, for the purpose of this bill, is changing the definition of a firearm. Can we find that in here, Martin? Yeah, it's, that we need to look at a little closer because it does go into 40, 16, 8, 3, which doesn't talk about the age or anti, but I thought somewhere else we didn't have an age issue, but I mean, how old the weapons are. Those 50 years in your amendment, 50 years in your amendment. Yeah, 50 years. 50 years it was, so it was worth it. Yeah, I would say we should probably, yeah. The other thing, just to throw to that conversation about who's a dealer, we had somebody read us the definition the other day, but I don't see it on our website. Do we have that? Because I think my impression in hearing it previously was that if you weren't doing it regularly, you could still be doing it for profit. If it wasn't a regular part of your business, you don't have to become a licensee in order to do it. Disagree. Disagree. Federal law says devote time, energy, and money for the purpose of selling firearms. So that would suggest, well I suppose it's very antiques it wouldn't bring them in, but so if the, no, yeah, no, the antiques, once again. Somebody goes and buys a simple war collection. They could buy and sell that without being a dealer because it doesn't be the federal definition. May I follow up with your question? Because I just want to be kind of more clear on this estate sale piece though. But again, to get the anti-contention like for a state sale, it needs to be a pre-1898 firearm, right? So like if you go to a state sale and someone in the state sale has a gun from 1963, 1954, I mean like all these like, those would under this, would have to so go for the background check because those are not antiques under federal law. Yes. So can you, so can you tell me when you're talking about, what were the terms engage the seller? Listen, you have three terms, engage, engage in the business of buying and selling firearms. You devote time, energy, money. Has that been defined elsewhere or fleshed out? Well, I believe if you go to the IKF website, you could find the definition of a dealer and it would break it down pretty much into what I was saying. If you buy and sell firearms for profit, you're a dealer. If you're a dealer, you're a licensed, you need to do background checks. Pretty tough and dry. Martin, are you looking through? No, I'm not, I just, I don't know what the provision is like. Anybody else? Well, thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. I'd like to, if I could, bring up something that I will see addressed here. Interstate commerce. Right now, we have people going to venture to buy firearms to save 6% or 7% if you live in chicken town. Are you gonna create lots of revenue for Vermont businesses by implementing all this where they can cross into New Hampshire and legally buy a firearm without meeting these requirements? Because right now, people are going to New Hampshire to save 6%. Why wouldn't they go to New Hampshire and buy their hunting rifle to prevent a 10-day waiting period? Though we're talking about lots of revenue to Vermont business. They keep going to New Hampshire and give them a Vermont ID and purchase firearm? Yes. You can say that. That's for everybody in my town, though. That's 6% for the first time. For what's worth, there is the pending Supreme Court case, though. Well, that's online sales. Mine personally. Online sales have to go through a dealer. That's federal law. You can't transport or sell firearms online between individuals. It has to go, somebody in New York could sell a firearm on an auction site to a Vermont resident. He cannot ship that gun to the Vermont resident. That's a federal violation. It has to be shipped to a dealer. And then all laws apply as though they were buying it in Vermont because they are technically buying it in Vermont. They're doing the transfer in Vermont. But I can see lots of revenue from people going to New Hampshire. Can just the opposite happen if people from Massachusetts come to Vermont and give you a Massachusetts driver license and purchase a firearm? Yes. Well, with it, let's, let me back up. Okay, well, let me just add, well, let me just add something. You know, this Jack Sawyer, the kid that threatened, I read the affidavit and he said in that affidavit that he tried to purchase a weapon in Maine and they refused to sell it to him because he had a Vermont identification license. What type of firearm? I believe it was a shotgun, but I don't know what it was. That's what he eventually bought. That's what he bought in Vermont. He bought it in Vermont because he got denied it in, they wouldn't sell it to him in Maine because all he had was a Vermont ID. Now some dealers, because of the increased liability and not knowing every specific law will choose not to do out-of-state sales. Now, we do out-of-state sales. So someone from New Hampshire who comes over would like to purchase a firearm. We can legally under federal law sell it. But what typically happens is it's the other way around because of that 6% sales. I could offer a 10% discount and they would go buy it in New Hampshire just to put it to the man on the 6% sales tax. It's just the way it works. Yeah, I'm wondering if the case we're looking at here may have been one of those, maybe denies. Six cents to you. Might have been a, that's what I'm just thinking. It was used with the Vermont license, but somebody got a bad feeling. I saw something on TV. It could be. It could be. It was on TV a couple of maybe a month or so ago. And basically it was a gun deal at some large city somewhere. And they said, you know, they've got a code word. Somebody walks in and they look at this person and they don't look right. It's a code word and everybody's aware that to be on the word. Which we have the same. We, if somebody, if it just doesn't pass the sniff test, you know, everything has to be reasonable in nature and it has to be common sense-based. A lot of indicators that maybe I pick up on, maybe other gun shops wouldn't because of my law enforcement, but we turn away sales. Just, I don't want to be involved in it. And when I got on my point too, because I was curious too, of maybe it went back to, like you said before, that white lie that sometimes you'll use to not do a sale because you don't feel it's right. So presumably it makes sense. I mean, well, sorry, I'll say one just can't do it today. Yeah. Thank you. I really appreciate your time. Okay. Thank you very much. I keep this one there. Yeah. Go ahead. Please do. I'm sure I'll be marked up a few times before. I hope so. This is starting point. That's why it's just the amendment that probably doesn't include the other language. Did you have the actual event ties that you're actually going to have this one? Okay. I suppose you meant it. That would be an added to that. Yeah. They've got great stuff here. Thank you. Yeah. Well, these are both the same. You need to get the most of both the same ones. So we need to get you, thank you, have another copy. That's what we got. Okay. Which one? Great. Then we have, the next one is like we were justifying together. Now I've seen something and said something. And now we can get you. Thank you Patty. Thank you. You're welcome. You're welcome. I'm dead. You're passing. Yes, I am. I'm blind. I'm blind. I'm blind. School phones are on these. I'm blind. I'm sorry. I'm blind here. I'm being heard the early. Early education is happening. Are we going to go down? I'm going to get down there. Okay. I'll just keep my last one. Oh no, no, no. I'll get it. Okay. Is there? No, there's something I checked. Several. It's canceled, but ours canceled. Please, please. So, welcome. Thank you so much for coming. We do record our testimony, just to say no. We're testing it if you can suit up for the record. Sure, there you go. Thank you for hearing my testimony today. My name is Madison Newt and I am a freshman at Jonathan State College. I was in middle school at the time of the Sandy Hook Mass Curve in a town right next door to Newtown. 9.35 a.m., Reading Connecticut. I was walking through the hallway to my science teacher's classroom when the government shot through the doors of the school. I was in the next town over. Dawn, Mary, and Natalie ran out to the hallway and screamed, Shooter, stay put. Dawn and Mary were then shot dead. I was opening the door to my classroom, the next town over. Lauren, the substitute teacher for the day, was trying to hide her students in the bathroom when he made his way into the room killing her and 15 children while I was picking up papers off my teacher's desk, the next town over. Victoria was trying to lock her classroom door when he barged in and killed her. I was leaving the classroom. Jesse was screaming at his classmates to run when he was killed while I was walking down the hallway. Anne was holding Dylan in her arms trying to protect him when they were both killed while I was stepping back into the computer lab. Three other children of Victoria's class informed the murder while I was sitting back down. 9.40 a.m. The massacre ended when he shot himself in a first grade classroom while I was sitting in the computer lab, the next town over. In the five minutes, the gunman was able to murder 26 people. In the time it took me to walk to my teacher's room back, he murdered 26 people, the next town over. I remember my wood shop teacher telling me about his granddaughter. He was in the process of making her a train and he was so excited to give it to her. He had even just retired to spend as much time with her as he could. But she died that day. Although I don't live in Connecticut now, I am forever changed by this event. After that day, I was terrified to go to school. I even refused to go for a while and I'm still terrified. My community thought we were immune. What makes this thing for monos? We are not immune. We learn this after the discovery of the journal of the student from Fairhaven. Our schools aren't safe, our movie theaters aren't safe, our public spaces aren't safe. Why do we think we are immune? It is true universal background checks aren't going to fix every issue, but passing them is a huge step in the process of working on the issue of gun violence. So far they have stopped over three million people from getting guns. With background checks, 47% fewer women are shot dead by intimate partners. Imagine how helpful this could be to women in Vermont as Vermont has the eighth highest rate of women dying by domestic abuse in the nation and two thirds of those deaths are by firearm. 48% less gun trafficking happens in state with background checks. Vermont is ranked 20th in the nation when it comes to gun trafficking. That is huge. People come from all around England to buy guns in Vermont and bring them back home. Imagine how many crimes would have never have happened. Imagine how many people could have been saved from the horror of gun violence. Vermont is ranked 15th in the nation for suicide and over half of those suicides are done with firearms. States with universal background checks, suicide rate is lowered by 53% and their suicide rate overall drops 31%. According to VPR, 89% of Vermonters support background checks and 82% of Vermont gun owners support background checks. Why are we putting our citizens in danger when they clearly want gun safety bills? Why do we not have an assault weapons ban? We know the destruction they can do. We've seen it time and time again after every mass shooting. Why? Mass shootings in schools are not the only gun violence we have in Vermont today. We know background checks have saved lives and I urge you to pass this bill out of this committee. I have had enough. My fellow students have had enough and I urge you not to put politics before our lives. We've had enough politics and enough dead children, parents, aunts and uncles, sisters and brothers. How many more will it take to die? Please act. Thank you again for allowing me to testify. Thank you. Members of the committee. My name is Clay Lasher Summers. I feel like I should tell you I was born in Vermont and my sister and her family have lived in the Northeast Kingdom for 40 years. I was also raised in Vermont until second grade. I live right over the border in New Hampshire where I own a small farm. I now serve as the executive director for Bensense, Vermont. Thank you for the opportunity for me to speak today. Bensense, Vermont is a growing coalition of concerned citizens, gun owners, non-gun owners, Democrats, Republicans, progressives, independence and survivors and more who understand that there is no threat to public safety in the United States and in our states that loom as large as gun violence. Bensense, Vermont advocates for universal background check legislation and other measures that will keep guns out of the hands of people who should not have them. On behalf of Bensense, Vermont, I am here today to urge the committee to support Senate Bill 55. Vermont needs a background check law that is comprehensive, one that covers unlicensed sellers. People that we have already identified as too dangerous at the federal level, like convicted felons, domestic abusers in the severely mentally ill can easily avoid a background check by purchasing for private sellers. Under current federal law, guns sold between private parties, person to person or at gun shows are exempt from the background check requirement. Requiring criminal background checks on all gun sales is a single most effective policy for keeping guns out of the hands of people with dangerous histories. Current Vermont law has no background check requirement. While federal law requires licensed gun dealers to conduct criminal background checks, there's no such requirement for unlicensed sellers. Prohibited purchasers like convicted felons, domestic abusers and the severely mentally ill can exploit this gap in the law and avoid a background check by purchasing guns from private sellers. Often in sales arranged online or at gun shows. The way the current NIC system works, licensed gun dealers start a NIC check by contacting the Federal Bureau of Investigation or state point of contact. The check is usually run by phone or computer after the prospective buyer provides a government issued ID and completes a federal transaction record for FTR. The dealer records information about the gun being sold including manufacturer, type, model, caliber, gauge and serial number. The dealer is required to retain the FTR regardless of whether sale is made or the buyer passes their background check. The NICs background check is valid for up to 30 days and only covers a single transaction. A single transaction can involve multiple guns. In most cases, a check takes only a couple of minutes. According to the FBI, roughly 92% of checks are render an instant verdict. If a check is clean, the gun is sold. If it's denied, the sale can't go through. In about 8% of cases, the verdict is delayed and the seller has to wait three days. If there's no verdict after three days, the sale can go through. In April of 2015, Dylan Roof was sold the 45 caliber block pistol at a Charleston, South Carolina area gun store despite confessing to a drug possession in a month earlier. The seller ran a NICs background check which was delayed and assigned to an FBI official in West Virginia. The official failed to discover the confession for drug possession before three days had passed and the sale to Mr. Roof was completed. The confession would have disqualified him from buying the gun he used to murder nine people at the Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church on June 17th, 2015. I have to get some water. Background checks are a systematic way to keep guns out of the wrong hands and save lives. Since enacted, they have blocked over three million sales of people with felony convictions, domestic abusers, fugitives, and other people prohibited by law from having guns. This loophole in the system make it easy for millions of guns to change hands each year with no background check and no questions asked. In fact, it's an estimated 22% of gun transfers take place without a background check, often between strangers who meet online or at gun shows. As of January 1st, 2017, 19 states and Washington, DC go beyond the federal level by requiring background checks for all handgun sales. In the 19 states, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Maine, Nevada, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Washington, Hawaii, that have background checks, they go beyond federal law. 47% few women shot to death by intimate partner. 47% fewer suicides in a study and data that was obtained that was from data that was obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Fatal Injury Reports between 2000 and 2015. 53% fewer law enforcement agencies are shot and killed in the line of duty. Data on those deaths were obtained from the FBI's law enforcement officers killed and assaulted database in December of 2016. Population data for law enforcement officers, police protection, persons with power of arrest were taken from the United States Census Bureau. In closing today, I cannot get on a plane in the United States without someone doing a background check on me. But I could go places in this country and buy a weapon and not have done that. I am grateful beyond words as a survivor of gun violence and as the Director of Gunsense, Vermont, that in Vermont, you have the opportunity to pass life-saving legislation. And I am urging this committee to not put politics in rhetoric. And you have a chance to do something that is going to matter. And to me, Vermont has been on the leading edge of many, many things. And I am just really hopeful that the divisions that have been caused by this issue can somehow be remedied so that women and children and husbands and wives do not have to suffer. Would I have suffered? What Madison has suffered? And what many other survivors in this state have suffered. Thank you very much. If you have specific questions, I'm glad to take them by paper. Just a quick question, though, as well. I'm sorry, I just want to... If I can answer it, I will, and if I can't, I'll get back to you. Somebody will write the question down. No, I just... The statistics, if you could provide us any of the reports that you've got. Oh, I can do that. I'd be great if you could get back to Mike. And if you're not ready, at this point, to comment on the amendment, the LaLonde amendment, which you should have received. Yeah, I did. If you haven't, now, if you could provide written comments on that as soon as possible. I can say that, you know, personally, if there was something that could be done about magazines, you know, the amount of magazines one can have, right? And to me, that only makes sense, right? The feeding devices that do that. If there's something that could be done with that. And I just got this late last night, so I haven't been able to look at it. But I will, I was looking at it, and it's just gonna take me a little bit to write about it, and I will write about it. I mean, basically, you know, there are things with gun violence, bills that make perfect sense based on what we've been seeing. So I will write to this. Yeah, thank you. You brought up the example of the background check failure with the shooting in Charleston, South Carolina. Right, and apparently there was a failure of the background checks with the shooting of the church in Texas. And the more you hear about it, many of these serial mass killings passed the background checks, they weren't. They had no criminal history or whatever. They were able to get their guns. But the other question is, is that there are lots of holes in the background checks. Existing background checks. Local authorities don't report things. I mean, this thing in Florida who had numerous encounters with the law and other issues that should have been read flags in the other examples. What, what can we do to fix that? Well, I'm gonna say first of all that I, there will be a failure in any system that you have, you know, any system. I, you know, there's just many failures. So what I would say is that, you know, the way that I approach this is that you pass, you pass gun safe legislation, you have them in your state, and then you have to do a lot of education about how this is going to work. Because in my mind, and it's not, I don't like to debate it very much. I think that just because we have examples where this might not have fit, you still have enough statistics that show that it has worked. And obviously, in my line of work, the fact that you can say one line was worth a lot to me. And our work with survivors all across the country. And when I started doing that, there was 10 that joined. And we have thousands and thousands and thousands and almost a hundred thousand. And, you know, I just, I know that in states where they have gun safety laws, and even as a package, they have safer citizens. My question was from Madison, a little off of this, but I was excited to hear, you know, you're not a Vermonter, that you, they're going to Johnson State. Yeah. I'm just curious, what brought you to Vermont? What is it about Johnson State that they got you here? It's beautiful up there. I think it's really, really beautiful. And I like that. I like the location, that it's smaller. And yeah, I think it's, I mean, it's beautiful. It's beautiful, yeah. Yeah. Madison is also the leader for March for our lives. I know, it's about failure, yeah. Well, thanks for coming. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. All right, thank you, everybody, for giving me the pleasure. So, that, in terms of when we're over, which, I don't know if we'll have to get back, but since it was Caleb about youngest's teachers and so on, they even shut down daycare to come. So I'm like, I'm definitely, I'm not going to be there. We, so we're back here at one, and we're not going out. Right, right, right. Well, that's Selena, I should get going, but, so welcome everybody. Before we start, you just go around the room and you can introduce yourselves. I mean, I was in the room and welcome you, so. Sure. My name is Raga Jemez. I'm with Arkham Media, which is the building. My name's Emma Blisske. I'm with Zatz Renfrew Consulting. Theo Ortsberg with the Treasurer's Office. I really love it with myself. We're going to go around the Middlesex. Carolyn Hansen, I chair the Vermont Domestic Violence Vitality Review Commission, and I also work for the Charity General's Office. Alex Slavitt School. Joseph Trottier, Hartford, his concerned citizen. Julie Smart, public school teacher in Montpelier, and concerned citizen about gun safety and violence. Noah Shanelson, mainstream middle school doctor. Avery Smart, mainstream middle school law lawyer. Thad Klein, mental health worker in southern Vermont and Wisconsin. Fisher, concerned citizen, Berlin, Vermont. Emma Bauer, senior at Leopard Academy. Alex Klana, from Picham, concerned citizen of working for the students of this issue. Hazel Bay and Dr. Jonsberry. James Pepper, Department of State Students and Chairs. Alana Hansen, middle school, school, and a lot of things like that. Bob Bauer from South Stratford on MSDead. Here's Dr. Spocker, an Arctopathic Under-Lawyer. Thank you. Michelle Fay, I'm Dr. Hazel Bay. I'm a former member of the Skid-Mid-Ace. I am. And Trista Muddinger, with the necrastic group. Hi, I'm here. Welcome, everybody. Hi. So, I know, if you want to go individually or as a... Yeah. Okay, okay. Welcome. Thank you. There's a list here and there, and we do record everything. Okay. And so we'll ask you to state your name and put it right there. Okay. Hi, my name is Emma Bauer. I'm 18 years old. I'm registered to vote in and live in West Windsor, and I also live in Stratford, and as I said earlier, I'm a senior at Thetford Academy right now. I would like to thank you all for listening to my testimony today. I joined my colleagues before you because I'm making it my mission to fight for the issues I'm passionate about. I believe that in order to be an effective member of democracy, it's important to use every opportunity for positive change that we are given. It is our responsibility to take action. I believe that S-55 is an important step towards preventing school shootings and other gun violence in the state. I believe in this bill because it would help to ensure that all gun owners who purchase the guns legally would be mature and responsible. The message of this bill is especially important to me because I would like the state of Vermont to do everything it can to keep these children in its school safe. S-55 is one part of accomplishing this. As a supporter of gun reform, I have the privilege of living with a gun owner. My stepfather owns about a dozen guns, all of which are kept in a closet, about 10 feet from my bedroom door in West Windsor. Living with a responsible gun owner has helped me to gain perspective on this issue that I think many supporters of gun reform do not have. It allows me to understand every side of this issue. I've had many conversations with my stepfather about gun reform, most recently about S-55. My stepfather thinks that creating background checks for private gun sales will not solve the problem of school shootings in America. He thinks that those who wish to resort to that extent of violence, regardless of their motivation, will simply break the law and buy a gun illegally. I understand his opinion and I think many would agree with him. I agree that there are many, there are certain numbers of our society that should not own guns yet are willing to go through any means necessary to fulfill their compulsion. However, I do not believe that this means we should not pass this bill. As I stated previously, I believe it is our responsibility as members of the democracy to take action whenever possible. Yes, there is a chance that this bill will not be 100% effective in preventing school shootings. But does that make it worthless? No, it does not. Will there be those who will buy guns illegally to commit violence regardless of what legislation has passed? Yes. But should we simply sit by and let this violence occur without even trying? No. Again, we must never be inactive in the face of injustice as members of the democracy. It is also important to recognize that this is only one piece of the puzzle. Other measures such as the bill passed on extremist protection orders will help solve this problem. The issue of violence in school shootings is multifaceted, so the solution should be multifaceted as well. This measure will not single-handedly prevent all school shootings, but it may prevent some. That slim chance is reason enough for me to support this bill. This is one important part of the puzzle. I'm still mourning the loss of 14 of my peers and three adults one month ago today in Parkland, Florida. But mobilizing for change has helped me to move forward from this loss. I have seen an epidemic in our society and I'm doing everything I can to change it at my school and in my state. That's why I'm here before each day. I hope that all of you will do the same. Members of the democracy have a responsibility to make positive change. As our representatives, your responsibility is heightened. I ask you to avoid the simpler path in activity and help us make this positive change to protect our future. Thank you. Do I take questions if I ask? Yes, of course. So we do have an amendment which I didn't expect you to comment on today, but if you have a chance to look at it and want to send in additional comments that it's an amendment, it's a low-loan amendment and it adds some additional restrictions and some additional steps to take such as safe storage, banning high-volume magazines and such. So if you want to look at that and send us anything. But also if you could leave with our assistant, committee assistant or email us your written testimony, we'll put it on our website as part of the record. Okay, I'll do that, yeah. Thank you. Thank you very much. Great. My name is Hazel Faye, I'm 13 and I am in eighth grade at the St. John's Bay School. I know that gun reform is a controversial topic, but in light of recent events, it is evident that our current system is not working. Safety in our schools is very important. As gun laws protecting kids should take priority over any slight inconveniences gun owners might have to face. The ways we are protecting children are not working if children are still getting harmed. I find it interesting that people ban books containing violence to protect children. Yet in many states, including Vermont, a child can possess a gun. I urge you to support the provision in S-55 that raises the age to legally purchase a gun to 21. Unlike cars or other potentially dangerous objects, guns are made for the sole purpose of killing. It is not unreasonable to expect that guns should have a stricter background check in order to purchase them. When a car crash happens, we recognize the danger and make cars safer. We see belts and airbags. We also regulate people's behavior by banning practices like texting and driving. The universal background checks in a higher age limit are ways we can make gun ownership safer. Students deserve the right to get an education without feeling threatened by violence. Every time that we practice a lockdown or lock-in, students feel scared, thinking about why we are practicing or if we will ever have to perform a drill can be scary. Fear doesn't belong in our schools and by passing S-55 we can keep it out. Thank you. Thank you for the question. So, Eleanor's not here yet. Okay, that's okay. So, was there anybody else with you that we could... Okay, great. Alex, Alexie. I would never have thought waking up on January 16th... Oh, I'm Alex Mart, sorry. I would never have thought waking up on January 16th that my school would become a statistic. Or on 9.45 I entered my classroom expecting to spend 15 minutes conferencing with my teacher. Instead I stayed in that little yellow room huddled in a corner for over two hours. When the announcement was made that we would go into lockdown, we thought it was a drill. So no one was nervous. We knew very little, but as the minutes ticked by, information was gathered. Friends texting friends and the room were spreading. There were police cars blocking the entrances. A bank in town had been robbed at gunpoint. We continued to work, thinking it would be over soon, but slowly the truth seeped into my classroom. There were nine kids and one teacher in that room, all frantically trying to sort truths from lies. It was so scary to me. The fact that even my teacher didn't know it was true and what wasn't. After 45 minutes, an announcement from our principal came over the loudspeaker, saying that there was an armed person on our school soccer field. The whole west wing of the school, the side nearest the individual, had been sent to the auditorium. I continued to be in lockdown in that classroom. This is when I emailed my parents. They reassured me, but even through the emails, I could tell they were worried. We were all, we all were. At 11, they shot him. We heard the echoes of every one of those gunshots. They say he was waving on a gun, threatening to kill himself. Instead, nine officers shot him. Even throughout the rest of that day, I learned more and more information. This man had been one of our kindergarten teachers' sons. He died that afternoon and every 60 hours when gunfire echoes through the halls of the schools in the United States had become my reality. We were the lucky ones, the ones who walked away alive. Last month, my peers in Florida gave their lives just for going to school. Closer to home, my peers in Fairhaven were slanted to die. But please don't underestimate the impact of this fear and uncertainty on every family in Vermont. If people are coming into federal state buildings and attempting to shoot adults every 60 hours, I bet you would have put your foot down and done something. Why is it different when the children of your community have this ever-present threat hanging over them? I support each of these gun bills because it is important and is what our future needs. Isn't a child's safety more important than owning a semi-automatic weapon? Isn't a child's safety more important than the convenience of someone who wants to buy a gun without the hassle of a background check? Thank you. So I know she's gonna, so we'll just switch to our testimony and when she comes to you. Yeah, okay, it's great, it's no challenge, it's great. James, is this good time? Oh, sure. Hi, James Pepper, Department of State's attorneys and sheriffs, and I haven't had a lot of time to look over the amendment, but I do have some thoughts about a lot of this. So if I run into any problems, maybe I'll supplement my testimony with some written testimony there in the week. So our department is very supportive of all of the gun bills that are being proposed here. We think that anything that can move us in the direction of preventing mass shootings or diverting guns to criminal enterprises is an important step. I think I'll start with the universal background check and I'm sorry I wasn't here this morning, so if my testimony is duplicative, please let me know. But so I spoke to an ATF agent last night about background check, or the NIC system particularly, and he said that this is a really important bill. There's a state that doesn't require background check for private sales, so a lot of people will come to our state to sell guns for that reason, not because they want to participate in a criminal enterprise or sell guns to prohibited people, but because it's not illegal here. And so this bill, just kind of a big picture, will separate out people that are doing this for criminal reasons from the kind of people that are just doing it inadvertently, or because it's not illegal. So he explained the NIC system to me a little bit. He said that in Vermont, you know, federal and FFL will make the phone call to the NIC system, and it takes about 20 minutes to get a background check, but they'll get either proceed, delay, or deny. And the denial that's pretty obvious what to do is pretty obvious what to do. The delay is kind of a strange situation. He said that 60% of the cases that are delayed are because of domestic violence, and what'll happen is they'll see a charge for domestic violence, but they won't see a resolution, or they'll see maybe a conviction for simple assault. And so what they'll do then is they'll fax an inquiry to the court of jurisdiction as to what happened in that case. And the facts will usually just sit on the fax machine until the three days has expired, and then the gun is sold at that point. So, and then if they find out that they are prohibitive, if ATF then finds out that they are a prohibitive person, they have to go and try and retrieve that gun. So that's just an issue spotting thing that he mentioned to me, and I'm not sure that this bill deals with that situation, but I know that the amendment has a 10-day waiting period which would probably solve that problem. Let's see. I appreciate you bringing up your conversation with ATF because my understanding, I think in general, federal employees are not, do not come to testify. They don't come to testify, but I was just talking about broadly the mixed process with him. So it's helpful for you to. Right, yeah, exactly. Because recently in your role, I assume my question is in your role, do you work with ATFs? We do, yes, yeah. And we're thinking about trying to get this one officer to do our training to help us understand these issues more fully, too, this summer. So another kind of, I guess, oversight of the current law is that, or even in jurisdictions where they adopt universal background checks or they require private sale background checks, so they'll have a gun that's been used in a crime, they'll trace it back to the original owner, and then the original owner will just say, well, it was actually stolen from me. So very often, step one is to pass the universal background check, and then you'll start seeing the jurisdictions that pass those start having mandatory reporting for stolen firearms, laws that do that. And then that, again, leads to safe storage laws also, which I think is also in the LaLanne demand map. So that kind of covers that oversight, I guess, of universal background check. So I think it's a really important bill. I just would like to say that, and we fully as a department support that, and hope that it passes. So moving to the amendment, I would love to have a little bit more time to go over the constitutional issues. I think clearly the assault weapon ban and the large capacity magazines, every federal court that's looked at that has upheld these bans. They generally apply intermediate scrutiny to them, and if you guys remember, I'm sure, that the challenge law must further an important government interest, and in this case, it's public safety. And that it must do so by means that are substantially related to that interest. So there's kind of a watershed case in the Second Circuit New York State Rifle and Pistol Association versus Cuomo. This was challenging, an assault weapons ban. Tell me if I'm repeating earlier testimony. Okay, yeah. And so the Heller decision said that the second amendment is central to self-defense. And so assault weapons certainly aren't generally used for self-defense. And large capacity magazines, they're very little used for self-defense. And then they also said that even if you don't have access to AR-15s, there's plenty of other firearms that you can use for self-defense. So those are the two justifications for why a large capacity ammunition feeding device or assault weapons ban was upheld in that situation. And I think that would apply here, too. I think that that kind of, that decision raises possibly an argument against increasing the age to 21 because there you're not talking about just assault weapons, you're talking about all firearms. So I can see how there might be an argument that if the purpose of the second amendment is self-defense, that you're denying that right to people that are 18 or 20. The NRA just filed a complaint against the law in Florida that raised the age to 21. They raised that argument. They also said that this would have a disproportionate impact on young women. So they tried to bring in a gender argument as well because they are more likely to become the victims of domestic violence. So they have an enhanced need for self-defense. So do any of those laws have exceptions in terms of the age restriction? Like military outhounds or fake meat? All that has to look into it. Yeah. And let me add one other one that's not in the building now because there are two exceptions in S-55. An additional one that we're looking into and considering is if an individual in that age bracket has passed a state certified firearm safety course that with that certificate, they can also be able to buy out a long gun, not a hand gun. Does that change as a constitutional analysis at all? All right, because it would be an absolute question. Does it make a difference if it's not passed? It seems like it would, but again, just add to this though that 12 states, I think now 13 including Florida and the District of Columbia have a total ban until 21. So, and then the way I see it, the age of 18 was pretty arbitrarily chosen, you know, 21. There's no justification for why 18, so why not 21? Do you know how, or could you please find out how long those states have those laws on the books? I'll find out, sure. With respect to the 10 day waiting period, there's a very recent Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals case that upheld California's 10 day waiting period. The Supreme Court had a chance to review and they denied cert on that. So, it's Sylvester V. Harris and it's 843, F3rd, 816, correct? So, James, just for some of the people in the room, when the U.S. Supreme Court denied cert, what does that mean to you? So, that means the party that lost and the circuit in the Court of Appeals petitioned the Supreme Court to reverse that decision and they looked at the, I mean, they only grant cert to, I think, 2% of the petitions that they get. So, it's not because they thought that this was the right decision. Sometimes they just don't, they wait till the facts are perfect before they decide to move forward on a case. But that means that that is the law in the Ninth Circuit at least and that this law has been upheld, so. So, this safe storage provision. So, of course, safe storage was an issue in the Heller decision that was overturned. However, the law in D.C. was much more restrictive than this law in that it basically banned all handguns. You know, it said that in your home that the handgun had to always have a trigger lock or be disassembled. So, even if it was in your possession, so basically you can never have a handgun. It's usable. In the Supreme Court, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned that. Massachusetts has a safe storage law that I think this one, from what I understand, is based on. And the Massachusetts Supreme Court in 2013 upheld that law. And so, I think that, you know, I think that this, you know, Heller wouldn't prevent this law from moving forward. So, could I ask a question about that particular? So, the key term, I think, in that provision is the immediate possession or control. Is that a concept that is dealt with in other areas that state's attorneys deal with as far as in prosecutions? I mean. A call that is defined? Well, immediate possession or control. I mean, you know, if you're prosecuting someone for drug possession, if it's an immediate possession or control, this is pretty much saying that this would be legal if it's an immediate possession. Right, right. It's kind of the opposite of what we normally think, but. Yeah, well, I'm just, yeah. If, heat default scenario, drug default, a couple of scenarios. So, an individual has a handgun, a loaded handgun, and has it in their bedside table or on top of it or in the drawer and leaves the house. Obviously not within their possession or control. But if the person is there in bed, or in the bedroom with that gun, I would presume that that would be in that person's control. Question is though, first of all, if that's correct. But what if the person's asleep? I mean, is that still within that person's control? If it's not locked. And these are kind of the questions that would be interesting to understand if there's, if courts or state's attorneys have dealt with those. The law, the case from Massachusetts that went to the Supreme Court, the gun was in the bedside table. The wife, the man was downstairs, he wasn't in the bedroom. The wife ran upstairs, got the gun through it out of the window. I believe. And then when he went to go retrieve it, she locked the door. And then he was charged with that, with not having it. So I, yeah. Okay. I don't know if that's- Maybe an area of factual- Yeah, well, it has to be determined. Yeah, by the courts. I think that's, yeah. Can I jump on that a little bit again? No, obviously possession or control can be different. But I'm more comfortable with that in my practice, you know, if like with Dewey law, you don't finish control of an automobile. And I've seen cases before where, you know, the person did pull over side of a road was asleep, but the keys were still in the ignition, so that was still considered control. And so, again, unfortunately, I think it's one of those until, until that really gets dealt out. I think it's going to be, at the rest of the day, it's going to go either way. Yeah. I would say that. Yeah. These are going to be fact specific. Sure. Okay. Are there any other provisions that you guys would like to talk about? On the, the storage? Well, that's really in question for, I think the commissioner of public safety. Yeah. I just want to make sure. Yeah, we weren't involved in that. I guess I wouldn't, I don't know if you've commented on the, the large capacity ammunition or the assault record ban, which you mentioned. Yeah, I think that, that is on very solid legal grounds. Oh yeah, you did, I'm sorry. You mentioned the second state of the type. Yes, okay. And that's New York State Rifle and Pistol Association to come up. That's, you know, that, that's pretty much on point for this. Yeah. Thanks. And I would like to continue to research to all of these issues and maybe submit some supplemental material. I just want to formulate my question. We heard testimony regarding gun shows and definition of a dealer. And I think there was concern that that somebody might not be a dealer and that still be selling at a gun show, which we heard was not okay, but then we heard somebody saying that, that happens quite a bit, which is why we need, on the S-55, do you have any? Well, when I was selling to the ATF agent, he said that a lot of people that would be normally prohibited will wait out in the parking lots of gun shows. And just say, hey, you know, I'll buy that gun for me for much more than they'll, than you can sell it for in there. And it's not illegal to do that currently. So, so I mean, if that answers the question, I think it does happen. I'm not sure what the frequency is. When you say that wouldn't be illegal, do you mean that it was a private sale? Private sale. So the person is not a dealer. So that part of the problem, part of the question that we had earlier was someone who is an FFL was testifying that his belief was that essentially anyone who was selling firearms for profit would be required to have to be an FFL. And I have to say, I think, having read the definition of a firearm yard, I don't quite agree with him. I think you could, it's not, it's not something you do sort of on a full-time basis, or as long as you're living, if you do it regularly, I don't think according to the definition, you would need to be an FFL. But if you were, or if you follow within the definition of the dealer, you still couldn't sell it outside in the parking lot. You'd still have to be, say within the law, you would still have to provide a background check, right, Ms. Olba? Yeah, you would go to an FFL. And the FFL would be, it's kind of like a, right, you would be the intermediary, obviously. If we pass. If we pass, right, yeah. And are you concerned that we may have FFLs that are saying, again, we're not gonna cooperate with it, or we're just, we don't have to do it, now we're not gonna do this, and that. Well, you know, I think that if you, I think that there's sufficient of them in Vermont to do this, and if they're charging, 20 bucks, 40 bucks for each one, and they can easily make decent, you know, $400 in a day on a gun show. And so there is an incentive to do, to run these checks. Okay, Ma'am, follow up. The testimony we got, though, from the dealer that was answering it was really based on the liability, so the charge that they're, the reason they charge this action, not because it costs them, but it's because of their liability, and so at least his concern was, he said, obviously, like the thing's true, I'm not going to comment, but I can see the final bill to see if I could take it or not, what would be the liability piece. And his current self, since he, that they are his guns, you know, and then he has a procedure to actually check them, you know, to make sure they're safe and all that, you know, he can absorb that liability, but his reservation with, with actually me and the media of the transfer, you know, those aren't his guns, so he won't have the same kind of ability that to check the guns, make sure they're okay, and because of that, it might be prohibited for him to do it because of the liability aspect, because now he's liable for, for that transfer. Bless you. I don't know enough about the liability I'm attaching. I mean, what this ATF agent told me was that, the reason why they charge a fee, even if, because the FFLs would do private sale, background checks currently, the reason why they charge the fee is because they're required under federal law to maintain that record for 20 years. And so that's part of that kind of administrative cost that is why they charge it. But so I don't know, I don't, I can't clearly see why liability would attach to the FFL if he's following the rules and doing everything that he's supposed to be doing, but he was talking about his insurance, the fine bill. I thought it was a liability insurance because, yeah, that record is what he's trying to prove the liability is true. Well, yeah. Mark. Do you have an opinion of what would be an appropriate waiting or a cool off period? I mean, it says 10 days in the bill, but any opinion on whether that's the appropriate timeframe? I mean, I don't, it's certainly a policy decision. I think that as long as it's in sufficient time to make sure that when there's the denial or there's a delay, as long as there's enough time to make sure that delay, the questions that are answered during that delay are answered, I think that's the appropriate amount of time, I can't say for sure. You're not sure how long that time is? It's usually just a failure of communication between the court and the next, or the person who's running the check. In terms of any case law that has said, three days, okay, but 10 days has been upheld. Well, 10 days has been upheld, very recently. That's right, that's the Ninth Circuit. That's the Ninth Circuit. Is there any finality, like, are there ever, did you hear, like, if there's ever a situation where then it stays a maybe and they never hear back? Again, I'm trying to think of more, like, now we're over on, for example, like, I think like, again, let's say that you're, it's a domestic from Essex County, and as you might know, like, that court meeting once or twice a month, you know, and so it could be this very long delay before someone gets to it. And so I'm just wondering, is there any way to even assure that you're gonna get the finality of so, like? No, I mean, what happens now is that after the three days runs, the sales is done, if it's a delay. But I'm saying, even if, I understand that, like, will eventually somebody get back to the FML? I believe so. He said that when they get back to him, and they find out that he actually was a prohibited person, then they have to go back and go and find the guy and retreat the guy, or find the person. But, you know what I'm saying is, they always get back eventually. I mean, that maybe is, I guess that's fine. Really, are there times where no one ever, or maybe stays a maybe is my question. Because it's not obvious that we have to figure that out. I'm not sure about that, yeah. Yeah, thank you. Hi, my name is Eleanor Riley. First of all, I just want to thank everybody for giving us and other students the time to speak today. We need a lot of students around Vermont to have our voices heard, and see them making impact here at our State Capitol. So I'm sure you all have heard about the walkouts that are happening all around the country today. People all over America, all over the world, students are walking out of school. And on our 17 lives, you need to see lost in Parkland, Florida, this day one month ago. I just think that shows that this really isn't a localized issue, and it's not a sudden or new issue. Gun safety and gun-related deaths have been insanely high within our country for decades, and people have been advocating for stronger gun legislation for just as long. American gun culture, however, has been around for a lot longer, and it's a right that we as Americans should, and maybe once could, have been proud of. But today is a right that is getting our children killed. I'm not an advocate for taking away our Second Amendment rights as Americans, and I'm no stranger to guns and American gun culture. I mean, I was born and raised in rural Vermont. My family have been gun collectors and members of the NRA for generations. My grandfather alone owned upward of 500 guns, and they're mostly, he sold and kept some of them, but they're mostly just in the house. They're in drawers, under beds, in cupboards, under couches. He inherited most of his guns from his father, who also used to make his own ammunition on his farm up in upstate New York. When my grandfather passed away, my father inherited most of his guns, many of which he sold, 40 of which he kept. My brother who's now 14 inherited his first 22 when he was about 10 years old from one of the many in my family's collection. So when I was really young, I just took guns for granted. Shooting was pretty much a fort. It was a family tradition. Then in 2015, a woman who worked for DCF was shot and killed while leaving work. Her name was Lara Sobol, and I'm sure many of you remember the incident. Unless I was mistaken, Phil Scott was actually acting governor at the time, even though Peter Schumlin was the governor. The woman who killed Lara was prohibited from owning a gun according to federal regulations. She had an underlying mental disorder, had committed multiple violent misdemeanors, yet somehow she was still able to acquire a gun along with dozens of rounds of ammunition. In this case, prior gun regulation was not effective. This woman was deemed unfit under federal law to own a firearm and has a danger to herself and others. If she could have bought a gun and ammunition off of anyone she knew, any friend, acquaintance, under the table with no consequences and no regulations, completely legally. It seems ridiculous that we can allow this. Why bother having regulated gun sales if private sales are completely unregulated? It is at the very least illogical and at its worst deadly. Peter Schumlin at the time called the news horrific and pledged to review security procedures at state buildings. Security measures wouldn't have saved Lara. It could have happened anywhere. It could have happened at her house, picking her children up from school or on her way to the store. I know this because my mom also used to work for DCF. I live in Morin and in the summer when I was little, my mom would leave for work and take me and my brother with her. Lara was her best friend at work. My mom would drive us to meet with Lara and her daughters at the bus stop to go to summer camp. It was called Lotus Lake Camp. I don't know if any of you heard of it. At the end of the day, after working all day for the state of Vermont, they would pick us up and drive us home. While I was playing tag at summer camp, my mom and Lara were working on cases like these where sometimes they had to take away children from their mothers and tear families apart. Working there tore my mom up every day. She would be exhausted every night and sometimes she would be involved in cases so difficult that she could barely talk when she got home. My mom didn't choose her cases. The DCF workers are assigned them randomly. Lara didn't choose that case. It was assigned to her by the state of Vermont and it was the state of Vermont to protect her while she was working it. This case could just have easily been assigned to my mom. It was a random assignment out of hundreds and papers had been sorted or filed differently. It could have been my mom lying on the pavement that day, leaving out outside of the DCF offices. The last time I saw Lara was at Bolton when my mom and I went skiing with her and her daughters. The last time I heard about her, it was the news of her death. My mom was an organ at the time. She left immediately and made it back to Vermont driving in under 48 hours, but I'm pretty sure she missed the funeral. During today, we had a snow day so we didn't actually get to participate in the walkout at Harwood. But I was thinking about it, especially when 10 o'clock came around and I knew that all over the country, students would be walking out of their schools and they'd be counting the 17 minutes. And I know that that number of 17, especially for those students as Stoneman Douglas will forever be different. For them, the number of 17 will carry a certain weight and an underlying connotation that will never really disappear. I know it sounds a little strange, but I say that because for me, that number is five. The five students from my school who were killed last year didn't die in a mass shooting, but losing that many young lives so suddenly is something nobody should have to experience. There isn't much we can do about preventing accidents. They do happen, but we can prevent something like what happened in Parkland and we can prevent guns from getting into the hands of people like the women who killed Lara. And this bill is the first step to that. Thank you. Can you ask questions? Yeah, oh, yeah, it's all right. You just said that this was the first step for that. Where do you see the end game? In terms of gun control, I don't think that people owning guns is a bad thing at all. Like I said, my family has owned guns for generations and hunting is definitely a part of life here in Vermont. And in terms of protection, I can see where owning guns can be used in that way. But I think that the way we treat guns in our world today, or I mean in America today, is something, can we get really defensive about it? And I think that culturally it's more about the culture and the practice of owning guns and the pride than the actual reality of the situation. And I think that keeping guns out of the hands of people who can easily, very easily hurt themselves or others, gun suicides are incredibly high. Domestic violence is incredibly high, especially with gun violence. And I think that just working as hard as we can to keep guns out of the hands of those kind of people is where we need to end. You're a great public speaker. Thank you. Okay. So your testimony is very compelling. And one of the questions I have is the Laura Sobel situation. The woman who did the shooting, of course, can't be convicted and the process is not really good. What about these bills? Would this bill, would have prevented her from getting her gun? My understanding is that I can't remember if she has the background check or you might be familiar with that. But somebody like that, would this help in that situation in the future for people who usually are troubled? Yes, because it would stop her from as easily being able to buy the gun. She didn't buy the gun through legal or through like regulated gun. When she didn't go buy it at a store or anything, she got it from a friend. So these, so yeah, this bill would have stopped that. How would it have stopped that? Because she was already, she already wasn't allowed to own a gun under federal regulations. So she wouldn't have been able to buy the gun at a store or anywhere else. But she was able to buy the gun from a friend or an acquaintance or anybody else under the table. So this bill would have regulated that sale and prevented her from getting the gun. I understand that's what Bill says. Practical application, that's a black market sale. How would that have stopped it? There still will be a black market, but there's a lot of guns up there. And those kinds of transactions, specifically in that case, could still occur, could still happen. So you're saying that black market sales just under the table might happen anyway? Yes. Well, I mean, we have lots of black market sales and drugs and all sorts of other things and probably with guns all the time, unfortunately. Yeah, I agree to that. I think there are definitely black market sales for anything. But in terms of regulating gun sales in general, I don't see how this would be a bad step in that direction towards keeping guns. Like of course there's always gonna be things that we can't regulate in our country. There's always gonna be things that happen under the table. But if there are things that we can regulate and there are ways that we can intervene, then I definitely think we should take those steps. Thank you. No, I'm not. David Chair with the Attorney General's Office for the record. I'll start by talking about S-55 that's passed by the Senate. Go through a little bit of that and then in terms of the law and the amendment and also a couple of words on the original S-55 on the storage and protection. Thank you. I mean, first of all, the Attorney General wanted me to pass along his appreciation to the young people who have been passionate and inspiring voices on this. And it's really remarkable of the work that they're doing and we appreciate their well-being here. So thank you for that. Speaking generally as a statement, the Principal Attorney General certainly believes that Vermont has a responsible culture of gun ownership and believes that in addition to that, we need to make sure that responsible people are the ones who are able to get access to firearms. To that end, he does support S-55 as passed by the Senate and I think the key developing piece of information that he does wanna convey to this committee and to the legislature is that as you may have heard, the NRA did file suit against the State of Florida for their under-21 gun ban. And the Attorney General is ready and willing and to vigorously defend under-21 gun ban should this legislature pass it out as well if the NRA chooses to sue the State of Vermont. As far as I know, there are other under-21 gun bans and I should say, they take various permutations. Some are possession bans on handguns, some are purchase bans on handguns and you've got the long gun category and there's purchase and possession so there's sort of four categories that we deal with and each of these states has slightly different permutations. As far as we know, it hasn't been challenged before so I'm not sure there's direct precedent to guide us. Speaking broadly, the DC versus Heller case had a very specific holding which was that there's an individual right to own a firearm and state or municipality can't ban the use of operable or the possession of operable guns in a home. Sorry, it took me a while to get that out. But it's important to note that it's a very specific and fairly narrow holding in that case. You can't ban the use of the possession of operable guns essentially the DC ban made it so that you couldn't have any operable weapon in your home. Many courts have grappled with Heller and grappled with the results of Heller and most of them have declined to extend it. There's been a lot of cases upholding gun safety laws around the country and in the second circuit, specifically, I think they've dealt with about four times in each case they found lawful. The gun safety measures that were in effect, these are mostly in New York State, coming out of New York State. So I just think that I can't speak to exactly what's gonna happen should that under 21 litigation come to Vermont, but speaking broadly, Heller's largely been limited to its holding by a lower course and we think we would be on safe ground. Of course, no responsible way will guarantee any outcome of any case but we're ready and able to defend that piece of it. In terms of the firearm storage piece specifically, and I understand this committee may want to not not ruin the flow of the legislation by making any additions to stuff that's already passed the Senate, but one thought that our office had and I wanna give credit to Carolyn Hanson who's here from our office also. One of the practical challenges that is faced when you're dealing with the state and specifically police departments holding non-evidentiary firearms is that they don't have the storage for it, they don't necessarily feel comfortable putting them in evidentiary spaces and there's a reluctance to do that. Should H-22 or whatever permutation, whatever bill H-22 becomes passed and should S-221 pass or whatever equivalent pass, you will potentially now have more non-evidentiary firearms coming into police department and some sort of provision in the gun storage piece saying that the money from sales that comes back to municipalities, right now the bill provides for I think it's two thirds, I could be misremembering the percentage. Some percent will go back to municipalities. If some language gets added in there to say that to the extent needed by municipality, this money shall be used for non-evidentiary storage of firearms, that may be a useful direction to give to municipalities given the fact that we are now trying to do a little bit more in terms of removing firearms from folks who pose a danger and that aren't necessarily gonna be evidence of the crime. So I think that could be useful. Again, I would defer to the committee's political judgment on navigating these through the legislative waters, but a suggestion to consider. Eric, you got that? Yeah, here, thank you. In terms of turning out to the O'Lan amendment, we would like a little bit more time, which is not to say we don't support anything here, but just we would like a little bit more time to review exactly what it is to compare it to other state laws and come back with a slightly more informed judgment on those pieces. There's a lot there. Again, we're not saying we're not for it, but in due caution and making sure we're checking what other states have done and what court rulings are, we just want another day or so. I know that there's gonna be testimony. I can provide that in writing or in person, hopefully, when the committee's taking up this bill tomorrow or Friday. I'm sorry, when you do that, if you could, you may have heard me ask James Pepper about just an opinion of what, if there's agreement that there should be a waiting period, what would be an appropriate waiting period? Sure, I can take a look at that. And David, I think I heard you say that you support the Senate version and I want to clarify, are you saying that the Attorney General's in favor of the clear and convincing level of proof and also to have a comment on the time period of 60 days versus up to one year? Yeah, so my comments were limited to S55 and I was using the term as passed by the Senate just to distinguish from the law amendment. That's the only reason I realized that might have been confusing, braziology. But if in any case, I'd be curious of whether your office has taken a position, I know I'm putting you on the spot. No, we have, so it's okay. So on S221, the Attorney General's position is that he supports the House version and he's also said, he thinks if the Senate version is what comes out of the legislature, that's an important improvement as well. So that's where we are. Good one, I'll go quick. So there's also H876, which is something that is additional language that is being considered to be put into S55. That's a bump stop, I don't know, man. So now I will come back all seven night, you'll see. Yeah, if you have any questions, I can answer. All right, thank you. Thank you. Can I see if Mr. Anderson is out here? Thank you. Right, that's it. Thank you. Good afternoon again, everyone. I brought Commissioner Cole with me today, that makes sure I don't really screw things up. So Tom Anderson, Commissioner of Public Safety. So my understanding, we're talking about S55, is that correct? So a couple of areas. So the genesis of this bill really started with, it's had sort of a tortured history of bill with the number of minutes it's gone through, but it really was, it started out for us in the disposition of firearms that are held by the Department of Public Safety. So right now the current statute is written as really an ineffective way for me to dispose of, for the state to dispose of firearms that it ends up with after criminal cases, or that come into possession of the Department of Public Safety just by law. And so it was really, the initial thing was to try to figure out a way to make that process more streamlined and better. And then I think, understandably, the Treasurer's Office was part of that process and was reluctant to be involved in the disposition of firearms, that they don't really have a whole lot of expertise in, don't know a whole lot about. So the idea, initially behind S55 was to make that process more efficient. For example, there was no provision in the existing bill that allowed any disposition of abandoned firearms. They had to be, they had to meet a very specific definition of unlawful and unsafe in order to be either destroyed or disposed of. So that was the genesis of it. And the bill, S55 right now, the portion of S55 that deals with this disposition of firearms is a much more efficient process for disposing them. It removed the Treasurer's Office from the process entirely and then involved simply the Department of Public Safety and VGS, which does all of the disposition of surplus property for the government, for the state, which is, this is more, this is more akin to. And just to give you a little bit of background, I gave you my buckets of guns that we have in possession of the state. So one bucket is these unlawful firearms that are by law are deemed to be unlawful. There are some that are unlawful per se and I think of those as machine guns, guns with obliterated serial numbers, guns that would be prohibited from anyone possessing at any time. And they're really defined under federal law as to what's a prohibited firearm per se. So those get destroyed because they can never be put back as a circulation. Then I have some unlawful firearms that are used in commission of criminal offenses that would then become unlawful. So that's one bucket of guns I've got, unlawful firearms. Then I have abandoned firearms. So these are guns that, a lot of these are suicide guns that have simply been used in the course of a suicide that the state police has gone out with. They may be guns that, hey, I got five guns from my uncle Johnny and I don't want them. And they're just abandoned. That's a big chunk of the firearms I have right now. So that's a second bucket of guns. Another bucket of guns are guns that are being held as evidence. So there are cases that are, they're simply being held as evidence and will be held until the disposition of those cases are completed. And a fourth bucket are guns that are being held for center of the like, for example, bail conditions, a relief from abuse, or maybe court ordered surrender firearms to a defendant that then end up in the possession of the Department of Public Safety that are being held. Those are more fluid because they can change. They might go back, and we're temporarily holding those in those buckets. They might go back to the person. They may end up becoming unlawful guns. And then they go over to my unlawful gun bucket. Same thing with the fire, the guns that are being held as evidence. They could, that's a more fluid bucket. They may end up going back to someone when the cases is resolved, when they're no longer needed as evidence. They may end up becoming unlawful firearms that then I'm stuck with trying to dispose of some way. So right now we have about 1,100 guns that we're storing within the state that fall into those four buckets. And of those four buckets, about 400 of them are the unlawful firearms and the abandoned firearms. The ones that are ready to get rid of them somehow. They cannot be getting rid of them yet. They have to be, the case has to go through. I've got to figure out, I believe from a view sword has got to be resolved, either it expires or not. And so those guns are, that's 600 or so, 700 of guns, they're just, they're still going to be held. It's really the 400 that we're trying to dispose of. So this bill would allow us to do that. And it would really put the burden on public safety and buildings and grounds to sell them for the state. In a reasonable and logical manner. So that's that part of the bill. I'm happy to take some questions on that. Quick question. So wouldn't it be easier just to destroy those 400 guns and not have to go through the whole sale process? That's another option. You could simply say that, unlawful guns or abandoned guns, you could authorize the Department of Public Safety simply to destroy those guns. So do you know why we want, or the Senate at least went in this direction? I mean, I shouldn't be asking that, I couldn't ask you that question before. See, I don't want to get into the intent, but what's your view of why we ended up with this bill? I think like all bills, I think there was some compromise that were reached and a way to address a problem that was a way that could be addressed that most people on both sides of the equation of the pro-fire arms or anti-fire arms could live within a way that allowed us to address a problem within the state that needs to be addressed in a way that is a compromise for everybody involved. So that's my understanding, but you could, that's another option. Just the power of the Department of Public Safety to destroy these firearms that end up in either as unlawful or abandoned guns. So is the concept that if we destroy the guns, that's somehow anti-challenged, is that correct? I don't know that, but that's one part of the equation. So that's, that was that part of S-55. So that would be very helpful to the Department of Public Safety for the state overall. I mean, I just, that just keeps, I just, that just keeps building up. And it's, you know, and that doesn't include the locals. I mean, who's, you know, the guns that are being held by the locals, by the local PDs. So that was kind of where I was going to go with my question. So these are all things that the, your department has in possession in some forms in the various buckets you talked about. And they're all in one place, one store in one. We do have them in one place and, well, the evidence ones are mostly held with barracks because they're evidence. But the 400 or so, we do have those, I believe, in one, roughly in one place. So if you got rid of the 400 in some manner, follow them or destroy them or whatever, you would have more capacity to store weapons that are firearms that would keep coming in through the various ways that we talk about. The buckets are going to continue to get refilled. And I know that storage of weapons in that situation is becoming a critical issue around this meeting. But I'm wondering, so it will address, may address the department's problem, the sub-proper period, or maybe it will be a problem if you're able to continue to get rid of guns over a period of time. But does it do anything to help the storage issues around other municipal departments around the state and about the also barracks, state police barracks issues of storage, that kind of thing. So the best way to do it is I'm obligated to take all the guns that are deemed to be unlawful. So let's say the bill just right now, I could destroy the guns that are unlawful or banned and we'd have to worry about them. We're still gonna have a storage issue because guns have to be stored for evidence. And so that falls to the responsibility of holding the guns as evidence, falls to the local police department for their cases, falls to the state police for our cases, and same thing for the relief from abuse order cases. They're generally held by the department who's involved with the case. Now what's their duty to be unlawful? So for example, if someone is convicted of an offense, the gun is now was evidence and that person now is a prohibited person under federal law or state law from possessing that gun. They're not getting that gun back. That's gonna now go into my unlawful bucket. Is that not my unlawful firearm that has to be disposed of in some way? Same thing with the relief from abuse. So that, if that's true, but then the guns being held at a local municipal, they have to be transferred to you? Yeah, that would be transferred to me after, and I have to take it under statute. I'm required to take those guns that are once they meet the definition of unlawful, I'm required to take them. So while they're still as evidence, that really falls to the department that are the police law enforcement agents that's got the case. Same thing with the relief from abuse orders. If eventually those become unlawful, the person becomes, and it's generally because the person who had the gun, who owned the gun is now a prohibited person under the federal or state law from ever having a gun again, and then they become unlawful and come to me in some, in some way. So I mean, it has sort of a trickle effect that it allows you to take more of those guns. It would be a flaw. It would be a flaw. Right now I don't have any way under, they're just flowing in. I guess what I'm really getting at is I'm trying to understand how much of a solution to our problem that we have about our inability to store firearms effectively or how much of the problem does this address? I mean, it would address, yeah, a big, 410 of a thousand guns. I mean, it would, it would, And that will relieve to some degree the smaller departments. Yeah, because I think it would enhance my ability to take unlawful guns again. So I do, I do think this, this bill would be a, would be a big step and at least, and is it perfect? You know, I, you know, I hope probably not. I mean, you know, it's gonna, we're gonna have to see how it goes and how, you know, how it works out. I can't say we may be back next year for some tweaks saying, hey, this didn't work quite right and it would be helpful if we had, you know, this amendment, this amendment to the bill. But right now I think this is the best. The abandoned guns is a huge issue because there's like no way to dispose of abandoned guns. And this is by just defining them and putting them under the, under this bill, that would be a huge step forward at least to be able to dispose of, of those guns. That's the bulk of my 410 are abandoned guns. Not the unlawful guns. The bulk of them are abandoned guns. The last question, if proceeds from the sale of their soul were to be used to help with the storage issue, do you have thoughts about how that would best be done? I wasn't quite sure but if the statute had a way that gets, gets divvied up, maybe, maybe. For the record commissioner of Billings and General Services, Chris Folt, so we just follow the same statutory requirement for distributing funds for surplus property. So it goes back to the department, line us in administrative handling charge for processing the sale, just like in any surplus property that the state has. For the local law enforcement agency, they would get two thirds of the proceeds for anything that they're providing to the commissioner of public safety that provides it to them. So I appreciate that that's the way it's done and I'm just curious whether that's the best way to do it. I mean, we figured for this bill, it was just cleanest to follow the regular process for how we dispose of abandoned and surplus property where the proceeds go. So we just referenced the existing statute. So that's all I've got on that portion of the bill. Hopefully that's not too controversial and it would be a tremendous benefit to at least get a more a process where it's really, we don't have a process right now for dispose. We really don't have a process and it would be helpful to have a process who will be perfect. I mean, telling me time will tell, but it will certainly, I think be better. I don't know what you're saying. So. And do you want to comment on any other sections? I don't, but I, you know, I thought that that's okay. But that was really the portion of the bill that I think we had the most. Sorry, that's really how it started. I know that a lot of many other things have been tagged on at this point, so. Fine, thanks very much. I think I had a good conversation. And so my question might be Mr. Cole. Sure. So if you're, how much of a problem would this be for you to handle this operation? You know, we have procedures for all surplus property. We would obviously have to look at different procedures on how we would handle this. You know, my thoughts are we'd probably sell it in lots, not individual guns, statue, sell it under consideration. What's required is to sell it to a FFL, a federally-enforced licensed dealer. You have to go through a universal background check. We would sell them as is. They would have to come pick them up, not mailing guns. So, you know, we would have to do some internal administrative policies to answer some of these logistical questions. You would be made whole by your fluid process. Yes, there's an administrative fee that we charge for the handling of surplus property and the rate is set by the commissioner of finance and management to ensure that we cover our operating costs at the surplus. So I think that's an important part of the bill is that any sale would be to an FFL, to a federal licensed, firearms licensee. So we're not warranting these guns. We would probably require waiver liability in any type of sale. So we, you know, they're sold as is, where is, come pick them up. We don't warrant that they operate. We make no warranties about them, that that really would flow to the FFL that's gonna make the purchase. With hopefully, you know, we'll work with the AG's office for a complete waiver liability to the state in any sale that is coming in. It's in the bill. Yeah, that is in the bill. That was one of the concerns that the treasurer had raised was liability issues. And so that was one of the things that we had wanted included in the bill. But as the commissioner indicated, we would also have a document signed by the FFL waiting liability for us. I'll try to call that because again, can you talk a little more about the liability if he's got things, perhaps might help us understand more. We have heard of conversations this morning from an FFL about some of the reservations they had because of liability that handled in transfers of guns, you know, absolutely, but because they're not our guns, you know, I haven't been able to check them, make sure they're safe and all that. And so, I mean, there was, you all also had those same kind of thoughts. So what are some, what are the liabilities that you're concerned about? The reason why you want to be exempt, what are the things that are making the state say, like, no, if I'm gonna, you know, pass these guns to somebody, I want no liability. What are the kind of protections that the state is trying to protect itself from? So I can speak to, it really, it's liability and warranty. So normally if you sell a product, you are warranting what you're selling, is that what you represent it to be. So, you know, the idea that we would warrant, put any kind of warranty on these guns, if we're warranting them that they're number one, they are what they say they are, that it is a six millimeter, whatever the gun is, if we're warranting it is what we say it is, it's operable, it's, you know, safe. We're making no warranties in that regard because that's not our business. I mean, we just don't have the ability to do that. I, you know, I could spend, I'm sure I get my firearms experts at the lab, could spend untold hours trying to figure out, figure that out when guns, and I'm just not prepared to do that. To me, the best way to do it is you are not, people that come in and buy these guns understand that they're buying these things as they are not warranted. If I say it's a cold 45, or you think it's a cold 45, that's what it is. I'm not saying it is, I'm not warranting it is. And that that all passes to the FFL. Now we may go through a year of this and we can't sell them. No, we don't buy them with that, with those kinds of conditions. And then I may be back in front of the committee asking for the ability to destroy them because we can't sell them at the inability to sell them. But right now, I think the best way for the state to do this is, you know, with a full waiver of liability from the buyers and for a clear understanding, it's not warranted, they are not warranted at all. I have a belt, here's your belt. Is there anything you want to say to the pativer? No. Thanks so much. All right, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, great. Yeah, thanks. Okay, let's go to the next one. H639 is a roll call. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. You're here now. Okay. What was that? Is that a roll call? That's a roll call. Remember you've done this. It's so nice. It's nice. It's nice. Did you get home? Did you get home? I did. She does not have fever. Oh, that's good. You're alive. He says it's a snow day. That's right. It's a snow day. It's a snow day. It's a snow day. Here's everything. Ready? All right. Good afternoon. For the record, I'm Auburn Watersong from the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence. And I just, if you could bear with me, my computer actually officially died. The hardware and everything died yesterday. So I'm without a computer. So I'm doing this the old fashioned way. And... On the phone? On the phone. With a paper? And then I have to go to my phone at different points. So I'm going to pull up what's on my phone here. Right. The phone. So anyway, thank you for inviting me to speak to you about S55. Before I begin, we've been talking a lot about firearms recently here. And I feel like it would just be odd for me to sit here and talk about this working in the field that I work in without mentioning a recent homicide. Wanda Sandwell of Royalton, who was shot and killed by her strange husband a week ago last Sunday. So I just wanted to bring that into the room for a moment. So thank you all for your hard work on firearms legislation already this session and last session, including your work on H675 and H422. I know your work is not easy and you bear a huge responsibility when dealing with matters of life and death. And the network thanks you for your focus on victim safety. I'm here representing our membership as you know and the victims with whom they work. Our membership consists of advocates across Vermont at 15 programs working to serve victims of domestic and sexual violence, dating violence and stalking. Last year alone, 2017, our 15 member program served more than 7,000 victims and responded to more than 17,000 hotline calls. In 2016, we don't have the 17 data yet, in 2016, 79 police officers responded to over 3,400 incidents involving domestic violence. It's my hope that my testimony today will be heard as a plea to continue to assist the victims in Vermont whose lives are deeply affected by the presence of firearms in these households. While Vermont has a long history of responsible gun ownership and a proud tradition of hunting, we have to call attention to the disproportionate effects of firearms and domestic violence-related homicides in Vermont. I think you are well aware of this count that we have since 1994, from 1994 through 2016, 58% of all domestic violence-related homicides were committed with firearms. So this is very important work that you do. We know that 80 of those domestic violence homicides were committed with firearms. It's important to note that these numbers do not include the abuse and the control and the torture that is suffered by victims of abusers who use firearms to threaten their partners. And I was just talking with Carolyn Hanson from the AG's office, and in 2017, we know that there were 10 domestic violence-related homicides. Not all of those with firearms, but I just wanted to point out that the issue continues to remain something that definitely makes Vermont not feel like the safe state for certain people. So again, I'm just grateful that you're looking at this issue. So, two S-55s specifically. The storage part of S-55 the network is in support of. We would also just like to go on the record saying we would support the AG's recommendation for some language that would direct some of the funding going to law enforcement to go for the storage of non-evidentiary firearms because we see that that's gonna be coming with these new laws that we put in place. But also, I have heard since we started the conversation around H-422 well over a year ago now and as I go around to the coordinated community response teams around the state that talk locally about what's happening in their own communities around domestic violence. I hear from law enforcement this issue of storage really being challenging for them. So, and I appreciate Representative Conquest all your questions around what that looks like on the local level because that really is where it's critical for the RFA firearms because that's where they land until they're unlawful and then they can move. So, we were really grateful that this was taken up because what it actually did was just provided an off-ramp for some of these firearms so that the flow can happen so that we're not hearing so much from law enforcement that there isn't any storage space. And then if we add this language that the AG recommends then that would even give them some funding which because right now as it stands there is a possibility for them to get some revolving loan fund money but it's a loan. It's not funny. It's not just money that comes to them just to have them build and keep storing. So, I think this would be a great new addition. So, we're really happy with the storage move from the Treasurer's Office to BGS and the testimony that we heard on the Senate side leads us to believe that all the parties are working together to make that happen so that flow will be beneficial to victims. As far as the background checks piece and I'm not sure what you had for testimony this morning so I apologize because I was over in the Senate and maybe you've heard some of this already but I'm so stopping for you. Not for me. Not for me. So, as you know in many states gun laws leave victims of domestic violence unprotected and one in seven unlawful gun buyers stopped by a federal background check is a domestic abuser. One in seven. And we know that since NICS has been in place since 1998 NICS has blocked more than 300,000 gun sales to domestic abusers. Now, federal law only requires background checks for gun sales at licensed dealers as you know and I'm sure you heard testimony about the private sales being an issue here in Vermont. And that is the case and again states that require background checks on all handgun sales see 47% fewer women shot to death by intimate partners. 47% fewer women shot to death by intimate partners than states that do not have this requirement. So, you know when I think about all the different firearms issues that you're working on right now I know not one of them for domestic violence victim survivors is a guarantee to answer, right? I mean we heard from Stella Gravel we heard her say that 422 might have kept her daughter alive and we heard and we know that in other cases it might not have. And so the idea that we could put all enough laws in place so that we're doing the best we can to protect victims and their children in the state of Vermont that's to me what's most important. So it's gonna take more than just, okay, each 422 background checks, storage, all of these things playing together will create a system that's much safer for victims. So we appreciate that. So in short, the network supports this bill. I haven't had a lot of time to look at the amendments but the thing about the amendments is I don't know how domestic violence related they are so I'll have to look at them and I can come back and comment at another time. I did wanna say something which I've been saying since each 422 was first taken up here, way back, a couple of iterations back now that in current Vermont law, and you're familiar with this, current Vermont law allows for the confiscation of firearms right now only at two points in a domestic violence situation. When the court orders the removal at the point of a final relief from abuse order between intimate partners and that is federal law, mandated federal law, and then the other one is following a conviction of a violent crime which is defined in our statutes in Title 13. So those are the two places really in the whole scheme of what we could be doing in the state laws around firearms and domestic violence victims and way, way back at the beginning of H422, I pointed that out and I mentioned and I can't let this opportunity go without mentioning again that we do not have in our emergency relief from abuse order statute or our final relief from abuse order statute anything that orders the relinquishment of firearms in that process. That said, I do wanna point out, I don't wanna alarm anyone because I do wanna point out that our courts, our judges, it's a common practice for them to order firearms be removed. In fact, it's on their form, the temporary and the final form that firearms be removed. However, it's not in our current statute and I wanted to just say that's another small step toward improving a process for victims and making sure firearms are a clear piece of those decisions that are being made. So I always wanna always throw that one back out at you when I'm talking so that you're not forgetting those pieces. So would that be similar to what we did in H675 in terms of codifying. Codifying, correct, just yep, yep. So could you provide language for us? So I wanna say in full disclosure that I provided language over in the Senate today on H422 and so maybe you and I could talk about, I don't know whether you want me to present that language here and they present that link and I don't know how that was. We can figure that out. We ought to work it out. Right, we're parallel. Okay. But I'm thinking that that could be something that we could consider. Right, right. At the table in this description here because you have read it quite a bit. I know. I have. And then the other piece to that, yeah, so I have language for you that I could send. The other piece to that is I would just add that there's a remaining piece to that issue that I don't wanna leave. I don't wanna leave you thinking that by putting that statute in place, we're actually fixing in its entirety the problems we have in relief from abuse orders and relinquishment of firearms. One of the problems that we have is actually operationalizing that and making sure that all the firearms are retrieved and that when a person says I don't have any, how do we prove the person that those questions still remain? That's not gonna be addressed in the language that I would propose. The language I would propose is just for really the court to order that and it doesn't go any further than that at this point. May I ask you again? I don't know where the off-topic load is but we can stay there for a minute because actually over the weekend, and all that I thought that we had done well to improve our phase actually as a student at my kid's school that is doing an externship or whatever you say, at an umbrella I brought an issue to my attention and actually I reached out to the Ledge Council and they said, yeah, I think she's right and so I went and stopped too and so I'm kinda reading off what I got back from Ledge Council and this deals with our effect because we had done work about even like not limited to court hours to try to get that relief, but apparently under 12 VSA 5134, a complaint for tip rate order with respect to stalking or sexual assault still must be done during regular court hours and must have a supportive affidavit in order to get the order. Is that right? Is that still like the role that we have to do? Because it's superior court, because it's superior court not family court, there isn't an after hours provision for stalking and sexual assault orders and I've heard from advocates for years that that's been a problem like, so if somebody's raped at 2 a.m., they have to wait, but if you're beaten at 2, I mean, I mean, like too big. That just seemed like crazy to me. I mean, let's talk about like, so do you, I don't know. No, I don't. Do you have a language work around for that too or no? I don't have one, but I'm happy to provide you with one if you'd like. Yeah, that is an issue for us. Yeah, I mean, that just seemed, I mean, I was shocked. I was like, what? That's right, and that's also a question for Judge Bruce and around how the superior court works. So I don't know, that really is kind of where it needs to start because I could present some language that just wouldn't be doable, in the scheme of. But it kind of similar to the little amendment. Like you said, it was just like to get the conversation out there and like, so I think nothing else but let's just see if there's, so I mean, I don't mind at least even using your language as our starting point. Sure. So, thank you. Yeah, thank you. So, following up on the storage issue, and I know we'd have to get testimony from someone else, but in your conversations with local enforcement about what they need in order to be able to take in weapons from RFAs, et cetera, have they talked about how, in what way money would be useful? So I'm thinking, well, the amount of money that might be generated from selling guns is not enough to build anything. Right, right. But, I mean, do they rent storage space? No, I kind of doubt it. I mean, I don't think they probably want them off their premises, but I'm just wondering, do you know from talking to them how more money might be useful to them in order to enhance their capacity to store? I feel like that's a question for police departments to answer, and I understand that it varies from police departments to police departments. Like South, I think South Burlington has a greater capacity, but I grew up in the Northeast Kingdom, and I know there are filing cabinets with evidence. So I'm just saying, like I know there's a great disparity between how different law enforcement agencies handle their storage, so. Got a testimony from someone else. Yeah. They've not been talking about it. Yeah, no, I mean, I generally hear like we can't afford it, and things are full, like our storage space is full and we need more storage space, so I generally hear that. And, but I think it would be better hear from them what they're looking for exactly. Yeah, thanks. Auburn, you started your testimony talking about Wanda Sandville. Oh, thank you. I read the newspaper council that anything, and my question to you is, is there anything that we're presently working on? Is it written so it would have stopped that tragedy because her husband or estranged husband was a convicted felon? There is no way in hell he should have been near our firearms. And as far as I know, now they're still trying to figure out where he got it from, but he. I know I have. You've read all these bills. Is there anything that would have stopped that? Well, so I have the same questions around the case because the case is still fresh and knew that I don't have the details on to know. Again, like you say, he was prohibited from having that firearm. You know, I think right now not having any of those details, so not really knowing what could have been done looking back. I'm just sort of looking forward on what are the places? Where are the gaps? I mean, and I don't know that it would apply to a Wanda situation or not. And I think there's a whole, along with changes to our firearms laws in Vermont to make things safer. There's a lot of other things that also need to be done around like community coordination for these families, for community wraparound services. How do we hold perpetrators accountable? How are they engaged and not isolated? How are they kept supervised? How are they, you know, there's all of those other questions as well because getting a firearm, like you're saying, if he was prohibited, right? So the, and he was on furlough. So there's all these, there are all these questions that are out there. And I think it's not one simple answer. It's many that work together. And I wish I had a simpler response. Can I expand on that just a little bit? Sure. Because we took testimony earlier this year, you know, it's been nine, 10 weeks and it's blurred me right now, but when we talked about, and I don't even remember what Bill it was, but we talked with the folks from Corrections about the ankle bracelets. This guy had a court order to stay away from her. If he had had an ankle bracelet on and it would have been monitored, somebody somewhere in some room could tell that he was, you know, he was in a location they should have been in and police should have been sent. You know, I guess I don't expect an answer, but God darn it, we're fishing without bait. You know, we need to figure out here what we can do to protect, you know, these innocent people. And again, I've had a loss to figure out where to go next. Well, can I just say, I mean, I think this is one of the great things that our Domestic Violence Fatality Review Commission does. They take every case and they tease out all of the pieces of what happened, what could have happened, what didn't happen correctly. They listen to witnesses in the case, children that were there on the scene or, you know, partners, all sorts of people. And then they actually divvy up, like what parts of the system failed and what do we need to make better? And I think, and every year they come out with a report that tells us where we're failing and where we need to get things back on track of what we need to do. And I mean, Carolyn's sitting right here, she's the chair of the Fatality Review Commission, but that, I mean, that's the excellent work that they do there with, and then often the Domestic Violence Council is also working at concert with those recommendations. So, you know, it's not easy. I'm going to show my ignorance here, but do we, like, does this committee get a copy of that report? I think I've sent it to you, but I can send it to you if you don't have it. I don't think I've ever read one before and I've been in there for four years. I think I sent one last year in my testimony in the 2016 one, and I, yeah, I can give you the 2017 one. Yeah, I'll be right here. Or do you have it? I might, but it would be great for that committee, I think. Right, it's really, I mean, they're really enlightening. I mean, they take apart the whole, like, what didn't work and what cases and how, yeah. Okay, thanks. To follow up on Gary's question, the background checks, so in this case, what we're just talking about, you know what I'm saying? We don't know all about the facts. Right. But could closing that private sale loophole, you know, could it be one more tool that could get us closer to, you know, the prevention of those fatalities similar to the Lord's Noble? You're in the, Right, I heard that, yeah. By Eleanor Riley, if that's what you'd buy. For sure. For sure. I mean, private sales that are not regulated, that there's no background check through, you know, we don't know who's getting a firearm and how and, you know, if they can get a firearm in a parking lot, but they're prohibited. But the transfer is happening without it being known that they're prohibited. Yeah, and that's the problem. That can happen. Definitely, definitely. It makes it harder and it might be a deterrent. It might be a deterrent. It might slow down the impulses too. I mean, we know one of the things about firearms that makes them so lethal is that the decision is this fast and somebody's dead, you know? And so, slowing down any of that process is always helpful, I think. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Yeah. Thank you. Sure. Great. Thank you. And let's see. Oh, camera. Okay. And she said her testimony was of the letter and her traveling. Oh, okay. Okay, all right, thank you. Mr. Tim Schatz, coming. Oh, Commissioner Schatz, I do. We wait for a minute. Yeah, sorry. But he's not here, so. Oh, okay. Commissioner Schatz. Oh, yeah, yeah. What's the, what's the, what's the. What's the, what's the, what's the. What's the, what's this? Oh, okay. Sir, I'm just going to add to the plan. Yeah. I wonder if he had that. He challenged it. Yeah, yeah. I'm going to pick it up, I'm going to pick it up. Mr. Michael. I'm going to pick it up. Add to the list. Wow. What are you doing? Oh, let me pick it back here. Oh, was it ghetto house there? Yeah. They're trying to compile. Oh, I haven't been doing that. It's true. It is conscious. That's true. I think that we're going to get back to us. Back to us with some information. Yeah. Yesterday. Yeah. I've sent Mike some documents to post as well. So I've been doing it all over the last half an hour though. So hopefully you'll see them. Not all of it, but some of them recently have come then. So they may take a few minutes to get up to the committee webpage. But yeah, during the conversation yesterday, a couple of issues had come up that the committee asked me to take a look at. And I've got some information I think might be useful. I wasn't able to be here this morning when you spoke with Mr. Perot from the Waterbury. So the FFL. So he may have given you some information that I may give you already. I mean, maybe he didn't give you the actual sites to the Code of Federal Regulations. It's where this is. You can see the language, but you may have talked about it with him already. I'm not quite sure about that. One quick point though on another subject before we get to sort of this record keeping, just kind of the big picture of the stuff that I was looking at after yesterday's hearing, was that I think Representative Wilhoit, you had asked about the statute of limitations for the crimes in the background check. Yes. So I was right. It is a three-year period. The general three-year criminal statute of limitations period would apply to the new misdemeanors that are created in the background check statute. Remember, there are two different ones. One for the seller, the chance for or, not completing the background check, or not conducting the background check on the transfer as they're supposed to. And the other one for someone to make fraudulent false information to the dealer during the course of the check. So those are the two criminal pieces, one year misdemeanor for each, and there's a three-year limitations period. Thank you. Sure. So there are some questions about record keeping and how this record retention works with respect to both, because you think about it, you've got sort of two parties involved in the background check, right? Because the purchaser goes, and in the current law, the purchaser goes to the FFL in order to make a purchase if they're buying one from someone who's engaged in the business of selling firearms. Under the proposal, remember, the transfer and the transfer, you both have to go, right? And do the, and have the background check done by the FFL in the same way that they do it now when they sell something from their own inventory. So you probably, did you hear this guy? You probably talked to him about form 4473. Yeah. Keep going. Yeah. Yeah. So did you see, take a look at the form? Did you see it? That should be out. Yeah. Okay. Good. So I forwarded that along yesterday. So you have the form. And it actually contains, interestingly, some of the information about it. We look at the regulation, too, but I noticed, not at least on my copy, if you go down, is everybody, can you pull up the form and take a look at it? You're interested. So, well, first of all, before we look at how the form is kept, retention-wise, under Code of Federal, let me see if you have this up on your site yet. The 27 Code of Federal Regulations 478.124. And this might be, I think, I titled it as something like FFL, record keeping requirements, something like that. So this is the actual requirement in the federal regulations that says, if you're a dealer, you cannot sell a firearm to anybody unless you fill out one of these 4473 documents. So generally, that's where the prohibition is quite clearly in the Code of Federal Regulations. And it shows also how they have to be maintained. So these FFLs have to maintain them in alphabetical order, chronological by date of disposition, and you'll see that as well on the form itself. So then if you go to the form, the 4473 form itself, and you look at page three, at the very bottom, you'll see like, after you get to the part that you fill out, there's another part that says notes and instructions, kind of starts like that. Bottom left-hand column of that. So whoever's purchasing the firearm, filling out this form is going to be notified of the information that's down there on the bottom. And that says as well, after the transfer or seller has completed the firearm's transaction, he must make the completed original ATF form 4473, which is this. And any supporting documents part of his or permanent records. So this has to deal with how long the FFL has to retain it. Pozana says forms 4473 must be retained for at least 20 years, and after that period may be submitted to ATF. You might follow that. So there's two different places that we're talking about where some records may be. And right now we're dealing with the dealer. So the dealer has to keep a 4473 when the response was that it's okay to go ahead with the transaction. So the person didn't come as a prohibited person. So when the transaction is approved in the background check, they have to keep it for 20 years. And go on to the top of the next column. Although it also just the same piece that I just read from CFRs in there as well. The flying may be retained by chronological, alphabetical, numerical, as long as the transfer or seller's completed form 4473 is filed in the same manner. So these will be retained at the dealer's place of business. Now what about if the form, what if it comes back denied, or if they stop doing it? So they're, hey, the person comes up, their name comes up, can't do it. What do they have to do with the form then? If the transfer or firearm is atop of the next column is denied or canceled by NICS, or if any other reason the transfer is not completed after a NICS check is initiated, the licensee must retain the form 4473 for at least five years. So you've got a five-year retention policy if you get a ding basically, and a 20-year retention policy if it's a clear background check and the sale goes forward. So that is both in the Code of Federal Regulations and actually on the form itself. So the person filling it out will see what's going to happen to their form after they fill it out and leave it with the dealer, which you have to do. So that's that same statement that was in the, that's in the form. It's always in a separate section of the Code of Federal Regulations. That's 478.129, Title 27, which is also loaded onto your webpage so you can see the language there. It's no different than what I just said, but it's helpful sometimes to see the substantive legal provision say the same thing, 20 years if it's a, if the transaction goes forward, not less than five years if it does not. So that's what the FFL is going to do. Next question that everybody happens with, what about NICS, right? What about, you know, the FBI? For whom, which is the agency within which the National Criminal Background Check System works? So they have very different, in some cases really no record keeping requirements. In fact, the opposite is true. So if you hook up, and you should have also on your pads a different document which says ATF record retention procedures, and that's also in the Code of Federal Regulations that's at 28 CFR 25.9. So what does ATF have to do with these documents? Generally speaking, if it's a positive, or I shouldn't say a positive, if there is no finding that the buyer is a prohibited person, so the sale goes forward, they have to destroy the record within 24 hours. So there will be no record there, at least up to 44.73, pretty quickly after they communicate to the dealer, hey, this person's okay, go ahead and make the sale. So that is in 25.9, B1 Roman numeral 3, hold that up. So Eric, what was the name? I don't think I see it here. I have one from good, it's an ATF firearm regulation. Yeah, that should be it. Cause we're in the next background. Okay, now you might be right. So if you pulled it up, and you go down to, actually you can look at all of them, cause it's helpful to see all of them here. If you look at B, so there's this audit log. I think we're in the NICS background. Oh, so it is, not an ATF? It shows retention policies. It could lead retention and destruction of records in the system across the top like that. The index records versus transaction. If you look at 25.98, cause it's the very first sentence, I realize I have to hit the hyperlink, but I'll go down the weeds. But the index records, those are kept indefinitely, but then I see where you are with B3, about the audit log records, which have the identifying information. Right. But I just, anyway, that's a very big difference. I wonder what the index records are, but anyway, I can follow up. No, that's a good question. That's a good one to follow up on. I noticed that as well. I think, well, ordinarily an index would not have that kind of identifying information, but hopefully we'll uncheck to be sure. But you're right. So these index records are kept indefinitely, but the audit records, which is the one that contains the identifying information, type of transaction, that sort of thing, those are, if you go down to contents, Roman number one, if it's a denied transaction records, they're retained in the audit log for 10 years. Now getting denied is because someone's going to have had a criminal record that prohibits them or, you know, be subject to one of the other nine categories of prohibited persons. If it's open, remember that's where, if they don't get an answer within that three-day period, that's, I'm looking at number two now, then it's destroyed after 90 days. And under subdivision three, all identifying information on behalf of the transferee, if it's an allowed transaction, it has to be destroyed within 24 hours. So Eric, am I right in taking that, the information that's on that form is about just really identifying the person who's attempting to purchase the gun. They don't, they're not sending the information about what firearm they're trying to purchase, the serial number. You mean in 4473 in the form when they have to fill out? Yeah, the thing that's going to next doesn't identify the firearm and it's zero number. That's kept by the... the seller. But is that right? I think that's right. Yeah, I think the seller puts that number down on the form when they're making the sale to the purchaser, but it's not on the part that's sent to the next... So any of those records that are in the central database for however long don't contain the firearms identification and association with the person? I want to double check that before I say yes for sure, I think that you're right. So there are some other interesting limitations on use of this information by NICS and by the FBI. So if you continue to scroll down a little bit on the same document we were just looking at, you'll see in subparagraph three, it's called Limitation on Use. Anybody see that? So this says that NICS includes... may not be used by any department agency officer or employee of the United States by which any system for registration of firearms, firearm owners or firearm transactions or dispositions, except with respect to persons who are prohibited from receiving a firearm bar, 18USA 922G deals with a couple of prohibited people, prohibited categories. So there's this express piece in there about not being able to create a firearm registration system. And that same subject, on that same topic, this I don't... it was not able to... because it's like a huge federal budget bill, but I decided not to log up your iPod through that. But within the federal appropriation for ATF every year since 2011, there's been language that says, I'll just read it to you, because it goes through all the ATF appropriation, then there's some provisals after. So this one has been in there every year. Provided that no funds appropriated herein or hereafter shall be available for salaries or administrative expenses in connection with consolidating or centralizing within the Department of Justice, the records or any portion thereof of acquisition and disposition of firearms maintained by federal firearms licensees. Can I follow that? So it's basically a prohibition on any consolidation or centralization of records of firearms sales by FFLs, which they do via saying whatever you can use it money for. And in your view of this forum, because I've been doing it myself then since I look at this morning, I haven't read that whole section yet. Under that privacy pause there on the 4473, it does provide a solicitation of the information authorized under 18 USC 923G. So if you looked at that and see how it can be solicited and basically how broad of an authorization that is or not, because I'm just wondering like if there is a way like maybe privately or independently, this could be that obviously you've gathered this information. Right, I know a lot of brokers or somebody like that. Yeah, yeah. And so I'm just curious about that. Because that's the least on the forum I'm looking at. That's the very first line. Yeah. The solicitation solicitation is authorized under. Who has that? I have not looked at that question. Oh, that's an interesting question. So I'm on. So I went, so I found my ATF forum that's here with everybody. This is on page 6 of 6 under all the stuff. Right. And it's the next to last section. And again, you all pass the privacy action information. Yeah, privacy action information. That very first sentence. Yeah. Right there. Yeah, I'll take a look at that. Interesting question. So that's all I have. We talked about yesterday and a lot to kind of page through in your on the documents. Sorry to load you down with that stuff. It is pretty much relevant to what you were thinking about. And I don't know if it deals with any of the specifics that you spoke about this morning with the gentleman from Waterbury too. I'm not sure. But that's what I have for now. And you already went through the amendment that I drafted yesterday. Is that right? The one that you were talking about, the one to S55 this morning. Thank you. So thank you, Eric. Sure. We also discussed about the constitutionality of the Benimus, of the angel in this. We talked about this today and I'm not sure if there's any other research there that has come to light or anything else distinguishing what is being close here versus what other states have. You know, I've looked at it a little bit as well. I think, you know, I don't have anything to say that would be too inconsistent from what you've heard. I would say that we're still a little bit unclear about the numbers of states that have this. You know, my numbers were a little bit different, but maybe I wasn't looking at it and maybe James saw something that I didn't, which is if anything likely. No, I think I did miss a overestimate the overstate number. So I need to, I'll correct the record when I have the exact number. But Elise, Elise, please bring them around. I think that that's when it was that I mean that there really haven't been challenges to this yet. Was that correct? So basically it's still kind of an open question. Was that correct? There's a complaint file. But it hasn't been resolved yet. Not to a complete ban, but there was. So there was this one challenge. It was like a fifth circuit case that to the federal prohibition on I think under 21s, possessed the sale of handguns to under 21s. And that was upheld. And that's the law. Yes. But there was a challenge to it. Like a challenge to it as a violation of the Second Amendment and a violation of Heller. And the court has interesting analysis. A little bit different than the Second Circuit's approach in the New York State Rifle Association case, which is sort of how firearms restrictions would get analyzed in Vermont as part of the Second Circuit now. But that restriction was upheld. We're interested in one of the couple things it said. One point was that age restrictions on firearms have sort of had this historical basis. So that it sort of took it out of the firearms heightened scrutiny analysis completely. And said, yeah. But it did go on to say, well, since we want to be sure, we'll assume for the second argument that that's not the case. And we'll analyze it under the intermediate scrutiny test from New York State Rifle and from a number of other circuits. Was it substantially related to an important government purpose and found that it was? But one of the factors that it pointed out was, well, look. And similar to, I think, what James had talked about with Heller, it did mention that it's not a ban on sale of all firearms. It's only handguns. So that person in that age group, say 18 to 20, would still have the ability to defend him or herself in their home, both with another type of firearm that they could purchase and with a firearm that they could be gifted. So that's sort of relevant to the analysis under the band that you're looking at in S-55, because that also was only a prohibition on sale. So I think there's arguments on both sides of that. On the one hand, does it potentially, because it's an infringement on somebody's right to sort of gain access to any firearm for possession, I mean, sorry, for self-defense, and it certainly would reach into the home because it's a ban on sale regardless. So that could cause some heightened scrutiny of whether or not it's substantially related to an important government interest, and what we have in public safety. On the other hand, it's not a ban on possession. So there's nothing in the language in S-55 that would prevent anyone from that age group of having a firearm to defend themselves. They just have to obtain it by another means. So it's certainly a novel question. It's not like it's, I think, other than Florida, the states I've seen that suggest they have this full ban on 21-year-olds purchasing firearms are only two, Hawaii and maybe Illinois, and Hawaii's got some exceptions for hunting, and you've talked about that, and Hawaii's got some exceptions for that, and the Illinois one is really sort of connected to a permitting system that is only roughly similar. So there aren't many states that have it, and so there isn't a lot of, actually there isn't any as far as I can tell, case law analyzing whether or not it's a constitution. We've got this one case for the 21-year-old and under purchase of handguns, and then you have the complaint that was filed only Saturday night, so it was only filed over the weekend. But I would say that as other people have said, that claim is color-able, right? It's hard to say what a court would say. I think there's strong arguments defending the age restriction. There's at least a reasonable basis for filing the complaint, and as with a lot of these cases, you have to wait and see what a court might say. And I think I heard that the AG's office say earlier today anyway that if there was a lawsuit, they would feel like they would be more than willing to defend it. But with many of these firearms regulations, I don't think it would be a surprise to see some of them challenged in court. It should be a shock, but there seem to be strong basis for defending them, as well as reasonable basis for challenging them. So did you get a chance to look into the Hunter or Firearms Safety course and what that's all about? I think we were going to try to super on to Michael Brady. Yeah, yeah. Give him a better idea. We're still talking about that. Okay. And then there's also a, okay, right, so Hunter and then Firearms, which I might understand is they're two different things. Oh, really? Okay. Actually, James, so I was talking to a gentleman out on the hallway, so he was asking about Firearms Safety course, which is more expansive and then the Hunter Safety course and then the exemptions. Did I get that correctly? That's what he was suggesting. Yeah, yeah. So, I don't have any questions about that. There's something. Mike, straight to the point. Yeah, I'll ask him about that. The witness who could explain those. Can I just add, the one thing that I was interested in finding out was this field component. We heard a testimony about the practical element and the handbook element, but I was under the impression that very few places in Vermont still have the field component element, that that's kind of a vanishing thing, but I don't know if that information's accurate because that would be kind of a big difference, sort of. It might be, I'll ask Mike about it as well, but it might be something that someone from Fish and Wildlife could be able to answer that question now. Oh, well, Commissioner Porter, it'd be fun to have him. Actually, on both of those questions, it might be useful to hear from him. Can Mike, can Mr. Porter have any questions? Hi, Eric. I've ordered you. Jansen had sent all of us something from President Burlington, questioning the constitutionality of the... That ain't ready yet. He just, he saw, I asked him, he said, would you share this with everyone, like, okay. So anyway, he claims that we're in the Vermont Constitution, but I'm constitutional, and anyway. Did you just send it? Yeah, so just welcome your, the site's a very old Vermont Supreme Court case. Sure, it's the one from Roland, right? They're telling me there's only been two cases. If it's talking about Article 16, there's only been two cases. The one that had a rot one that said no one could possess a handgun in the city unless they had been approved by the Chief of Police. Yeah, Thorpe v. Rutland? Yeah, and then there's a more recent one from 68 or something that had to do with... Is it Maddington or Burlington, or is it Central Vermont Railway? I don't know, maybe there's another one. The only other one I'd heard of was the the law that is basically, I don't think it was a jacket, I think it was, it says you can't carry a loaded guy in your car. I think there's a state statute that says that. Rifle. You can't have a loaded rifle in your car. Right. And that was challenged under Article 16, and that was had propelled. Well, yeah, what specifically do you know what the holding was? It was actually somewhat, you know, roughly, it's relatively brief, but it's sort of a rough similarity to kind of what you may recall Justice Scalia saying in Heller, which is that, you know, this language doesn't mean that the state can't enact reasonable regulations on use of firearms, and this is reasonable. It wasn't a lengthy analysis of it. I think that was sort of a rough, rough synopsis of it. But those, I have both of those, and I can have those posted too if you want to take a look at them. Great. Yeah. Take a look at the email because the number of points regarding age of majority and if they just be helpful to get your opinion on it. Sure. You're going to know everything there is to know about this. My retention is not that great, so bye. Then I'm in real trouble. Any other questions for... Thanks, sir. Thank you. Sure. So let's take... I believe we have all our questions with Jay. So let's take a break and...