 Cool. So this is markup of S3, 30, 30, I'm sorry, I'm on Friday. That's 30. We have an amendment from Ruth and Sears or Sears and Ruth. Pull that one up, Senator Sears. Yeah, please. Is everyone able to see the amendment? Yeah. Shall I walk through the changes, Senator Sears? Nope. Okay. So for the record, Eric Fitzpatrick with the office of legislative council here to walk the committee through version 2.1 of senators, Ruth and Senator Sears proposed amendment to ask 30. You recall the discussion last time and this is the bill that was discussed in the last meeting. It's current form prohibits possession of firearms in hospital buildings. You recall there was a discussion in particular about signage. The last meeting. So the way the bill is framed right now. It prohibits knowingly. I'm on line seven prohibits knowingly. Possessing a firearm within a hospital building that language is tracked very closely to the. Language used for prohibiting. The law enforcement officers. They're not allowed to use school building language. To make sure that it's building itself that's being covered. The. No changes to subsections B and C B is the point that it's a one year misdemeanor. And C is the exception for law enforcement officers basically. But there is a provision added. This is also. Actually, I think this is based on the court statute. Let me double check that. But in any event, this language comes out of. A similar, very similar language that's used. Already about signage, the requirement that signage be posted. And you'll see that the way it's phrased right now. And I think this is. Also a point that the committee agreed on that the prior hearing, which is where would the signage be post. Posted. And says it's going to be, has to be posted conspicuously. At each public entrance to each hospital. So if it's a hospital. That is required to be licensed because that's who. That's the hospitals that are covered by this bill you see in line 20. That's the licensing statute that is cross-reference. So if it's a hospital that. Subject to the licensing statute. Then. It has to, it would be required to post. Conspicuously at each of. Public entrances to the hospital. Signage that provides notices. That is a notice of the provisions of the section. In other words, notice that. That possessing a firearm. Inside the building. Is illegal. So that's the. Change there. The additional, the signage piece was not in the, in the previous version of the bill. Can we talk a little bit about knowingly. The state has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the person. Did not knowingly. Possess the firearm. Am I correct? That they did knowingly possess it. That they did knowingly. You're right. They did knowingly possess the. Somebody walking into a. Hospital building. Is told. Somebody sees they have a firearm on them. I got this example from somebody the other day. Guys having a heart attack. A car in the middle of the hospital. Is charged. To the hospital as a pistol. One is waste. Not. So he's in the middle of a. Cardiac. Situation. As a. Will he be charged? I guess that's the question. Would he, could he be charged? And the answer is. How would they prove that he knowingly was carrying it in when he was coming in for another reason. That he knew that he was carrying it in. When he was coming in for another reason. It may have been unconscious. Yeah, I would think if the person is unconscious, then knowingly would be virtually impossible to prove. But. The. Facts and circumstances surrounding each individual case would. There had to be some evidence that the person. Knew they had. That's the, it's the burden of the state to prove that. And. If the person's. You know, They don't have any evidence that they knew when they came into the building that they had a fire. They're focused. They're not unconscious. Their focus is on something completely different. Their wife is just fallen and. Is bleeding heavily. And they're bringing her into the emergency room. Happened to have a firearm on them. Did they knowingly bring it in? Again, it would depend on. To what extent they. Knew they had it. Prior to the stressful event. And then the, the. I would presume the defendant would argue that. You know, they were. No longer because of the. High stress. The. The duress, the duress of the event. And Eric. If I could just check if my understanding is correct. So let's imagine somebody who's conscious. And they're going in to visit a family member. And they've got a gun on their hip and they're just not aware of it because they've had it there all day. And they are informed by somebody and they say, oh, gosh, I didn't realize. That seems to me on its face evidence that they didn't knowingly do it. And I think it would be difficult to prosecute them. If they leave when they're, when they're told. Is that correct? Yeah, I think that's a fair point. Thank you. S 30 would prohibit firearms and hospitals. I'm reading from an email. Actually, it's a form email. It's against S 30 and H 133. I've only read the part about S 30 since we haven't seen S one. H 133. S 30 would prohibit firearms and hospitals, public buildings and daycare centers. This bill has hit several snags along the way as witness after witness, went into problems with the ill-conceived bill. Furthermore, trust pass law easily allows for issues related to these facilities to be addressed. I'm not asking anyone to. I'm not asking you where. I would like to go back over the trust pass laws again and why. This would be different than somebody who. Current trust pass laws easily allows for issues related to these facilities to be addressed. That statement. I thought we had discussed. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I'm not going to go into the prior and committee. Time and time again, how. Illegal trust pass works. Versus how this bill would work. And my understanding is that. If we were to prohibit within a hospital building. If we were not to do this. And somebody's carrying a firearm into a hospital. And I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that creates it illegally rather than. Illegal trust pass. They have to be notified and then have to come back in. Right. Am I correct? Is that the discussion? Are you asking me, Senator. I'm asking anyone. Wasn't that the discussion that if. If. There's a sign up. It says you can't bring a firearm into this building. You can't bring a firearm into the bill into the building. They're told that they cannot come in with a firearm. To charge them with illegal trust pass. They would have to refuse to leave. Or they would have to, I'm not taking witnesses from outside the. This thing is just. Trying to understand the difference between the two. You're right about that. If they would have to refuse to leave someone, the differences that. If they refuse to leave, someone has to notify the person. That continuing to stay on the property would be trust pass. And then. If they refuse to leave, they can be charged. So that's, that's the distinction. So. I'm just trying to. Make sure I understand. So. Can I ask questions? Senator Sears. Yeah, sure. So just what Eric's describing. So you're describing Eric, how it wouldn't, how it works. Presently, are you describing how it would be under the proposed bill? In other words. If I understand it correctly, if they come in under the proposed bill. And there's a notice outside. That they don't have to be even asked to leave. They, it's just a matter of. It wouldn't be a trespass enemy. You'd simply be violating the law and could be arrested. And that would be a violation of the law. And so the only way he can do that is if somebody has to ask it to leave. Correct. That's exactly right. So what I was describing was the process under the trust pass law. Yeah. And what you've described is how it would be different under this bill. That's exactly right. No one has to. Notify the person of anything, the bringing of the firearm. Into the building is. Amapho immediately. Yeah. Yes, Senator Baruch. So just a couple of thoughts to add on the trespass piece. So, you know, courthouses and schools are already covered by state law prohibiting firearms. They're the two locations where we've done that. And the trespass statute was in place when each of those were enacted. And those legislatures considered the trespass statute and other existing law insufficient for the purpose they had in mind. I think we've had enough discussion to reach the same point here. So my, my question is, if the trespass statute is sufficient, why wasn't it deemed sufficient in the case of schools and courthouses? And the answer for me is what we've seen all over the country where the trespass statute in different states is being used to deal with the the masking issue in, in stores, let's, let's say, so people go into Home Depot without a mask and they're being asked to leave under the trespass statute. And first of all, that means that the employees are having to deal with the arguments and the violence. But it also, in each of those cases, if you look, every one of those anti mask people argues that the trespass statute is not enough authority that there's no state law or there's no federal law prohibiting them from coming in. So this is a way to make it just abundantly clear and to provide an additional level of protection. So you don't have the arguments because as we had testimony from that doctor who said that they had had arguments and had to involve personnel in them, which took them away from their duties. So that's kind of my frame for the why the trespass that your doesn't work. So comments, comments or questions about s 30. Did you want to look at section two as well center series. Yes, please. Of course. Remember this is the, the report and the study. I see pretty obviously the, the chain chairs that the, as drafted in the, in the previous amendment, they can get, excuse me, sorry. The capital complex security advisory committee was going to report to justice oversight on the regulation of weapons in the state house. And the proposal was to expand that to, to not just be a consideration of weapons in the state house but to consider the capital complex. So that's the other than that it's the same it's that the capital complex advisory committee is going to study the same substantive the same three substantive issues that the committee had laid out which is how the issue of weapons, in this case that the capital complex is currently regulated, including rule 26 of the joint rules describe situations when when folks had impermissibly possessed weapons at the capital complex in the past, how they were handled, and make any recommendation about how, how the issue of weapons at the capital complex should be addressed in legislation, I should say whether and how so if they if they conclude that legislation would be necessary they can make that they might not necessarily reach that conclusion. So that's the, the report to justice oversight, again the change being from the state house to the capital complex which is already defined elsewhere in statute. Just a reminder here to that the, that the capital complex advisory committee is supposed to sunset so we have to make sure that I think I think in the capital bill. That sunset is going to be either extended or repealed so we'll, we'll have to keep an eye on that as well. Joe. Is that accurate to your mind do you think it's likely to be extended. Yeah I think it's likely to be extended. We haven't done it officially yet, but all signs are pointing in that direction. Yes, Senator Nick. So I remember. We had testimony from Matt Valerio with regard to making this study committee similar to the bill and it would have. He had suggested I believe changing possession of weapons to possession of firearms. Do you recall that discussion. You probably have better memories on that. I would be okay with that. I'm just thinking of the, the sign currently out front does say weapons I believe. But I, you know, I think the primary concern is firearms. Senator Sears is this the time when we're having a committee discussion on this bill. Absolutely. Okay. I just want to say I appreciate the amendment narrowing down the scope of the original bill I think that's an important step. And it gives me the impression that people are trying to reach a common ground. I still feel like I need to oppose if this becomes part of the bill and it gets voted out of committee. I'd like to confine my remarks here to what the two provisions of this amendment would now be. I think Philip is has expressed the two thoughts really. One is that we've done this in schools and we've done it in courthouses. And therefore this is okay. And that brings the testimony of our former page Lily. Can't remember her last name saying this is the next step. And I think it's fair to say that this next step is a continuing series of steps. And it turns the question of where can I self defend on its head to say why should you need to practice self defense at this location or that location. The description of masks and arguments over masks is, I think very important. Because we are seeing all kinds of disputes in all kinds of places with people who are frustrated about various things. And we have a next step here that continues the conversation about where you should be prohibited from practicing the art of self defense, which is a constitutional right. But it does concern me. I don't want to get upset and fly off the handle or accuse people of anything but it is a path that is pretty obvious. One of the things that we heard originally about why the hospital section would be necessary was the shooting that took place at Dartmouth. I was thinking that perhaps we were going to hear more evidence about that along the way and I didn't hear any evidence. So I spent a little time on the internet looking up the case and trying to figure out what that case was all about. And I think it's important to know that the woman who was killed Pamela Farrier was in the ICU at Dartmouth hospital. Her son was an individual who had serious problems before he ever got to the hospital. Pamela was killed in 2017 but in 2013. Her son, whose name is Travis Frank, had a wife and a three year old son who had died in a running car. I don't have enough information to understand exactly what happened. But it looks and appears from the reports I was able to gather that they died as a result of the mother's actions committing suicide and homicide of the three year old. That was four years before this shooting took place. But Travis Frank, according to the Warwick Post, was a resident of Warwick, Rhode Island on the day that he shot his mother. He left his home and drove 187 miles to Hanover, New Hampshire, knowing his mother was in the ICU and shot her. That was in September of 2017. Grafton County Superior Court, which is across the river from me in North Haverhill, New Hampshire, has fairly limited documents on what happened thereafter. But the one document that's key to this conversation is that the state and the defense entered into an agreement by which Mr. Frank would enter a secured psychiatric facility. He did that in 2018. And to my knowledge, there has been no other legal action since then because he remains in that secured psychiatric facility. So if we were to pass legislation like this using that example, as why we should pass this legislation, I would submit this legislation has nothing to do whatsoever with that particular case. So I'd like to move on to the hospital here in St. Johnsbury where you heard from a local doctor. I've been a corporator at that hospital now for probably 10 years. And I've never heard of an incident at that hospital where in a gun was brought into that hospital and a confrontation took place at all. And it is fair to say that people get very emotionally nervous and upset when there is an argument of any kind. And the doctor specifically said to us, I can't imagine what if that what if conversation is a very valid concern, but it's not limited to hospitals. It's limited to shopping malls. It's limited to parks. It's limited to the capital states front lawn. It is apt to happen anywhere there is a potential conversation. And that then could be used as this legislation comes up as the next step to justify the next step after that. And that is what we in the legal world call a slippery slope to further encroachments. And again I want to say that the encroachment is on a constitutional right as I see it. I took the liberty of listening into the Democratic caucus the other day and I heard Senator Chittenden expressing this is no different in his mind from an automobile and speed limits etc. And I have an issue with that because driving an automobile is not a constitutional right. And I want to make very clear that my argument here starts with the question. Why should my constitutional right be limited. If I had heard evidence that we had a constant problem or even a problem of a specific gun incident inside of a hospital in Vermont. It was different than the scenario at Dartmouth. Then I might give consideration to this being a problem. The only other incident that I heard about was several people and I think it was Washington or Oregon from the Bundy clan who showed up. And some of them had guns but there was no evidence in that case that any of them ever actually pulled out a gun. Were they intimidating people with the presence of a gun on their persons. Sure, I'm confident that happened. But that does that justify Vermont telling its citizens that they cannot use their constitutional right of self defense in a given location as a result. I want to shift now to the second portion of this amendment. The Capital Complex Security Commission has several law enforcement individuals on it. It also has chairs of both the House and Senate institutions committees. At the present moment, I believe I'm the chair of that commission committee. Two of the people who are also on that committee are Mike Shirling and Matt Romeo. And they both came and said to you we have enough ability to restrict people from carrying firearms into a public place. We haven't had a problem with those things. And we don't see a need for this because it's redundant. Visitors, please turn their video off. Senator bill more. You are. Joe sorry for the interruption. Sure. I come back to this question. If they already believe that they have the power to eject someone from a place that is adequately signed saying, you should not be here. Why then would we set them in motion to come back to us with a report. Which they are pretty clear at least in my mind telling us this is something that we don't need to do. So I guess I'll pause there and say I appreciate again the fact that we're trying to narrow down to something that is more palatable for all sides. I think that the fact end up voting for the amendment, but I would still come back voting against the bill and I just want to make clear that this is the kind of bill I would probably feel responsible to my constituency to stand up on the floor and make an argument about it. I just want to give the committee heads up about that. Appreciate that. Senator Bruce. I, let me begin first with a quote that Eric Fitzpatrick sent me, and this is from District of Columbia v. Heller, which I'm sure Senator Benning knows, 2008. The Supreme Court held for the first time that the Second Amendment protected an individual's right to bear arms for self-defense. And Justice Scalia, writing for the majority, added this sentence, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast out on long-standing prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places, such as schools and government buildings. So the idea that the original bill or the strike all are unconstitutional, I think is a very, very tough thing to stretch. First of all, we've had our laws against firearms in courthouses and schools for 30, 35 years. They have not been challenged so far as I know, but it seems that this opinion would shoot it down immediately. I want to go next to, I guess I'm continuing to be mystified, Joe, in your approach to the incident at Dartmouth. You always want to read it as invalid in this discussion, but it was an incident where a hospital was locked down. People were sent into a state of terror and a woman was killed by a guy with a firearm. So I continue to be confused why you want to act as though some circumstance, for instance, that the guy was a citizen of Rhode Island, would mitigate the problem. And I would add to that we did have testimony about incidents where doctors had to argue with people who had guns into the hospital. That was testimony that we had. And we had testimony from a high school student who was an intern or a candy striper at Dartmouth during the lockdown. So our testimony from the hospitals, including I would imagine your own because we were told it was a unanimous opinion. All the hospitals, all the doctors, the health association, the nurses support the strike call. So I understand the slippery slope argument. It is made every time a gun bill is advanced. All I would say in this case is it's not a very slippery slope if it takes 30 years to go from two locations to three. I think you raised a fair question, Phillip. And I'd like to respond, Dick, if I may. First off, my point about the Dartmouth situation is that you had an individual, clearly mentally ill, driving 187 miles expressly with the purpose of killing his mother. This statute would not have prevented that. And I've made a living for 37 years off of people who have violated statutes that have been passed. So while I understand and appreciate the emotional concerns of the people who were there, I will say again that there are emotional concerns in virtually every confrontation, no matter where they take place, hospitals or otherwise. And I will point out to my own experience in life that if you're a divorce attorney in a hotly contested custody situation, I can label many situations where I was concerned about the level of potential violence taking place. And if I use that as an excuse to pass a law on each and every occasion where some confrontation has happened, that's concerning. Let me jump to your response about the Heller decision in Justice Scalia. The Heller decision was not discussing the 16th article of the Vermont Constitution. It was discussing the Second Amendment. And there are differences between the two, but let's assume just for the sake of the discussion that Justice Scalia's words would also apply to the 16th Amendment. That doesn't mean that we should stand idly by and say we can restrict the right to self-defense anywhere we want because there's an emotional concern that there might be elevated violence of some kind. There are situations that the Constitution still has to be looked at as your first starting point. And in Vermont, it's very clear to me, distinguishing it from the Second Amendment, that the 16th article is clearly based on self-defense. And so the question in my mind is, do we restrict self-defense? I have never had a quarrel with a private enterprise saying, you may not come in here with a weapon. I think that's a person's property right. That interest has been well protected in all of this discussion. And we have not had situations where there has been somebody violating that that I can tell in a hospital setting. We have had laws in the courthouses and schools, but the one on schools didn't stop Jack Sawyer. And that's my point about the guy in New Hampshire. Somebody who is mentally ill, bent on nefarious intent, is not going to respond to this. But those people who are not intending nefarious intent will be swept up in a new crime that we are creating. But Joe, that's where I'm concerned. When we pass the laws, we never use the standard anywhere. Thank you, Mr. Chair. We never use the standard anywhere else that a given law has to stop 100% of the behavior at issue. So for instance, we have a lot of drug laws. No one reasonably expects that that's going to stop 100% of drug trafficking in Vermont. What we're trying to do is set a very clear statewide standard, communicate our values broadly to our people so that we reduce that behavior by as much as possible. That has worked, I would argue, very well with schools and courthouses. We had testimony that people can't remember when someone was prosecuted for bringing a gun into a school. And that's because everyone knows now that you can't do it. And if they do it by mistake, the knowingly language protects them. So you can always find a case where someone used a gun in spite of a law or someone sold drugs in spite of a law or speed over the limit on the highway. But that's not really 100% compliance isn't what any law is going to achieve. We're hoping for a broad cultural agreement that hospitals are a protected location. Leave your guns at home. I respect that, Philip, and I will say that we have not had any evidence of something in schools, except for Jack Sawyer, which everybody knows. We have not had any evidence at all in any Vermont hospital that I'm aware of that a situation has arisen where we need to create a new crime on the basis of no evidence. That's very troubling to me. I understood. I appreciate the discussion and I'm going to call it a debate. Actually, it wasn't 30 years ago because I was here when we did the courts. I was here when we did the schools. 93, I think. Yeah. I was new here. I believe my recollection there were similar discussions. However, I want to talk a little bit about how I got here. And I really don't care if the study is in or not. That's not much. When we took up this bill and had three components to it, really, one was government buildings, two was child care centers. And the final, obviously, was hospitals. I was skeptical to say the least about a number of things. But I listened to the testimony. I was convinced by Commissioner Brown that things would get really messy if we tried to do this in child care centers because of the agreements. I think his quote was the agreements between the the licensee and the state licensee, not having firearms available, et cetera. So his testimony I thought was really compelling. When we got to the government buildings, I realized that it was, and I did hear from a number of communities who wanted us to do the government buildings. But I also heard the argument from some, and I was thinking of my own town or Beechboro that I represent, where it is 45 minutes. If something happened at that town office, and unless the troopers were on the road, talking 45 minutes to get there from Shaspard, or maybe a little longer from the other side in Westminster. So I was concerned about that. But I heard the concerns of the Treasurer, the Attorney General, the Secretary of State, and the audit group accounts. So that's really where the capital complex came in. When I heard the people from the hospitals, what I heard was vulnerable people are being treated in hospitals. Unpredictable things go on every day in hospitals. Whether they'd be mental health patients, whether they'd be cardiac arrest patients, whether they'd be somebody who's injured in a fall or somebody injured by an industrial accident or whatever. And I also heard that it's not unusual for frontline staff in Vermont to be assaulted. Joe's correct. I didn't hear about firearms being used to carry out those assaults. But again, not unusual for frontline staff to be assaulted. So I kind of settled on hospitals as being a place, and I had actually had that conversation over a year ago about why is it that we would allow in the hospital. So that's how I got here. And that's why I would support S30 with hospitals. And that's where I'm at. If an amendment was on the floor to add others, I would oppose it. And I would oppose the bill. I don't know that there'll be any amendments. I hope there aren't. But I want to make that clear. If I'm voting for hospitals and hospitals, the studies there, the studies there, it's not there. It doesn't matter to me. But I just got convinced by the doctors, convinced by the medical society and others. My position. Anybody else? Alice, did you want to comment? Yes, I'd like to say that I would make a motion to change the weapons to firearms just as as a minor change to the study. But I would make that motion to change it, which was the suggestion of Matt Valerio, the Defender General. I agree. You agree with that, Phillip? Okay. Fine with me. Any objection? Anyway, and additionally, I quite frankly think we should wait for our other member and that we're only a committee of only five when one person is missing on a bill that is so important in both directions, that we should wait until tomorrow morning to see if Senator White would be here to vote with us. Okay. Let me just look at the agenda for tomorrow and see if we can fit this in. I think that's actually a fairly good suggestion. Right now on the agenda we have from 830 to 1045 devoted to S3. Well, doesn't sound like S3 will take all that time. So let's try to hope put S30 in. We're at 915 because we have S3 scheduled all the way to 1030. Somehow I think there's a mistake. Do we want to put it in at 830 if we're not going to hear from Julie? No, I'd rather take care of S3. We've had S3 scheduled and we may be a little bit late getting started. So I would think it's safer to say 915. It gives to take up S30. Okay. Is that okay with the committee? Fine with me. At this point, before we move to S25, is there anybody in the room who would like to comment briefly, very briefly, on the discussion? I may. Thank you. Devin Green, Roman Association of Hospitals and Health Systems, just to clarify what I was talking about with testifying earlier on an example. We did have an example of someone bringing a firearm into a hospital. This was at Copley Hospital. A nurse confronted the person and asked them to put the firearm in the car. The person argued about their Second Amendment right and refused to do so. The ED director had to go over and work with the person. It took several minutes. Those are several minutes that are very precious in an emergency department which could differentiate hospitals from other areas as well as the fact that when there is a gun in a hospital and an active shooter, hospitals need to get locked down. That means people get diverted to other hospitals. That also takes precious time and could affect outcomes and be a life or death situation. Thank you. Anybody else? Bill Moore? You have your hand up. Bill? Yeah, I just wanted to add a great discussion. It's still deeply concerning to me. Aside from people who are unconscious or debilitated as they're being brought into a hospital that this may end up being inconsistently applied depending on the institution. One institution may simply call the police when they see it. A handgun and an open holster and another may just say, hey, did you see the sign when the person leaves, so I'm concerned about inconsistent application. I understand that discretion applies for the cops and the prosecutors. It's already out there, but I just wanted to reiterate that concern. Thank you. You're welcome. Anybody else? Eric? Thank you. Just a quick question, Senator Sears. I think I heard the committee agreeing to change the study from weapons to firearms for purposes of the draft. You're going to vote on tomorrow. I just want to make sure. That's correct. Yep. Yes, we have agreed on that. Okay. Thanks. I guess one final question if you could. Is intent anywhere in any of the laws regarding firearms in schools or in courthouses? Is there any intent language? Yes, I believe it's in both, but I'll double check. Could we have copies of the intent language as possible? I'd like to know what the intent language is in the schools and in the courts. I believe it's, I'll send it to you, but it's exactly the same. It just says a person who intentionally has the weapon there, but I'll double check. We're using the term knowing there. I'm sorry. I meant knowing. Oh, okay. There is no intentional language in either of those. Correct. I misspoke. Sorry. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Good. We're going to take another three seconds. There's no need to go offline, Peggy. We're just going to. Can we have two? Yeah, I'm sorry. Could we make it a five minute break? We could make it a, Chris Bradley had, did you have a comment? Briefly. I believe in 4004, Senator Sears, Chris Bradley from our Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs. There is intent language in 4004. I'd have to check the court, but I know there's knowing and intent in two separate sections of 4004. Okay. Thank you very much. Can we check that on that, Eric? Yes, I'm pulling it up right now. Okay. Why don't we, we'll come back to this tomorrow morning at 9.15. We're going to take a five minute break and take up S-25, which has to do with cannabis. And I hope we will get to miscellaneous judiciary.