 Morning, thank you for coming. My name's Dennis Amson. I live in St. John'sbury. I'd like to thank all the supporters here, all of you in orange, who have come to stand with us to protect our children. We've had a lot of questions about who we are. We are a group of individuals who happen to be Vermont law enforcement officers. We're here on our own to voice our opinion on S55 of the bill as it now stands in the House. We feel that the amendments that have been added to the bill beyond the first five sections that were originally put forth will be completely ineffective and will violate the constitutional rights of Vermont citizens to self-defense and to bear arms, particularly the so-called High Capacity Magazine ban. It will not make our kids or anyone any safer. It will be unenforceable from a law enforcement standpoint. There are easily tens of thousands of this type of magazine here in our state, possibly more. There'll be no reasonable way to enforce such a ban. Further, these magazines do not make a firearm or a lethal. We want to be clear. Creating laws that criminalize what Vermonters have done safely for many years due to uninformed beliefs and perceptions is a betrayal to the people of our great state. This will have no impact on gun deaths, yet will restrict and prevent honest Vermont citizens who choose to exercise their constitutional right to protect themselves and their families. We, too, are parents, and we, too, want to protect our children in their schools, in our homes, and elsewhere. This bill not only does not do that, it actually makes it harder to protect kids and others through restricting the right to bear arms. Our message to our representatives and our senators is this, don't take away Vermonters' rights to protect themselves and their families, only to leave them prey to criminals who do not play by the rules. We want to offer our help and encourage our politicians to involve law enforcement when they are drafting legislation in areas that are familiar to police officers, officers who would give anything to be there to protect citizens but recognize that we cannot be everywhere all the time. Vermonters should not be restricted in their right to protect themselves. Further, any bill of this type that will, so obviously, be such a decisive piece of legislation needs to include public comment. To not allow that is akin to gun laws passed in the dark of night in other states such as New York. We are not in New York. At this time, I'd like to recognize Senator Joe Benning, who would like to say a few words. So good morning. O the irony of a criminal defense attorney standing shoulder to shoulder with law enforcement. O the irony of being a person who has never owned a gun in his life standing shoulder to shoulder with people dressed in orange. And I want to make clear before I begin that I am not a member of the NRA. I have never, to the best of my knowledge, received a donation from the NRA. And I've never owned a gun and probably never will. But I'm here because I am a fierce proponent of that document that binds all of us together as a society called the Vermont Constitution. Vermont Constitution does not grant you the right to bear arms so you can hunt. The specific language says you have the right to bear arms for the defense of yourself. And there is a tremendous difference between those two concepts. So when I see a bill come out that would deny an individual the right to protect themselves from an aggressor who will not abide by the legislation in question, that has me concerned deeply. Now just to talk for a moment about S55, the bill that brought us all here together this morning. When S55 was at Senate Judiciary Committee, which I am a member and vice chair, it had one provision in it. The state has been collecting arms for many, many years and had not the ability to sell them, to dispose of them, to clear out the storage space. For that reason, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed a unanimous bill that said, this is how we will allow firearms to be sold. It was that simple until it hit the Senate floor. When it hit the Senate floor, two provisions were added to it. One was a provision for anyone aged 18 to 20 to not be able to purchase firearms. Now if one goes by the theory that anyone in that age group is irresponsible and shouldn't have a firearms, I would understand the logic of saying you may not possess such a firearm, but I do not understand the logic that prevents you from purchasing a firearm. So I asked myself, what is the calamity that has brought us here? School shootings, obviously. How will that provision actually prevent school shootings? I would argue it will not. It had another component to it, and that was background checks. And after looking at the 17 most known mass shootings in this country, including the schools in Parkland, Columbine, Sandy Hook, and Virginia Tech, those individuals who were the shooters either passed a background check or obtained their weapons from someone else who did. So I asked myself, how will this background check actually solve the problem of school shootings? And I come up with the conclusion it won't. Why is this important? In my district, the Caledonia district, the school in Newark, Vermont, is approximately 40 to 45 minutes away from the nearest state police barracks in St. Johnsbury where somebody to my left actually works. What is it we have done in this bill, as it left the Senate floor, that actually addresses the question, what do we do to prevent the immediate threat of harm to our school in Newark? The answer is absolutely nothing. Why aren't we here with signs protesting that we need to have more secure schools, that the doors to our schools should be narrowed to one entry point that is secure? Why are we not here talking about how to develop programs to teach children to recognize in each other, not only what they are doing to themselves to cause individual students to become isolated and alienated, oppressed, and sometimes committing antisocial behavior? Why are we not addressing that with this language? Why are we not talking about trying to figure out the ways that students can help look around and see something and then teach them how to say something without fear of retribution? The most heroic individual in the state of Vermont right now is not in Vermont. It's a lady named Angela McDevitt from Poughkeepsie, New York. She had the courage to stand up amongst her compatriots and say, something is not right here. I wanna make sure something bad doesn't happen. Why are we not promoting programs to help kids like her actually make a difference in what we are facing? I don't know the answer to that question, but I'm very frustrated knowing that our constitutional rights are under attack. And in fact, the proposed solutions will not produce the desired result. At best, the theory behind each and every one of them is, eventually over time, there will be less guns in the world or somebody with a mind that's already gravitated to the point of being a shooter will maybe not receive them or be delayed in receiving them. That doesn't help the students in Newark. And it shouldn't help any of the students in any of this state. So I am hoping that when the legislation does get further discussed on the floor, that it goes away or when it comes back to the Senate, that the 17 to 13 vote that it left the Senate on is turned around because we are not solving the problem that is immediately in front of us. I'm gonna hand it over to Jensen Wilhoit in the house and he'll tell you about the provisions that got added that made it even worse when it left the house. Hey, my name is Jensen Wilhoit. I'm a representative from St. Johnsbury and like Senator Benning, it also is a unique but I think also a very wonderful Vermont opportunity today. Again, because I too am a criminal defense and juvenile defender in Caledonia, Essex and Orleans County. And again, it was having funny remarks from some of the deputies from my neck of the woods. It's like nice to see you somewhere other than court. But again, but the point of the matter is, just as vigorously as Joe and so many of my compatriots on the defense bar have done various ways to try to represent our, those that we represent court under the 1st, the 4th, the 5th, 6th, 8th, 14th amendment. All of those are important. I too am someone that doesn't own a gun. I too am a member of the ACLU and I too believe in protecting all of our liberties. And that's why I am also here today because I cannot even imagine our state, the state of liberty to be able to restrict the rights granted through our, not only our US Constitution but even more so under the Vermont Constitutional Constitutional Article 16. And so in doing so, I'm proud to stand with law enforcement officers, sportsmen and women throughout the state of Vermont to protect those rights. But as Joe alluded to, we did receive the further amended S55 and the House Judiciary from the Senate and from there more was added. And as many in the room and the press know, there were a lot of things that were on the table that luckily at least this year were moved at least a little less far. However, a couple of things were added onto but the one I wanna specifically talk about was limits of capacity size of magazines. And again, I'm glad that I have sportsmen around too because I'll be honest with you, when I first saw that I'm like, well that seems to make sense. I mean, who wants to support, you know, of excess magazine capacities? But remarkably, it's amazing when you get information how that changes minds. Because if you look at the vote last week even in a very one-sided House on body, that only passed 79 to 66. So yet my caucus only has a third of the body. And so why is that? The reality is because it was completely ineffective. Not only it is true as I was alluded to by Dennis earlier, the amount of magazines that are above what would be now a legal amount throughout the state. But again, the round of the various completely legal and responsible rifles that are out there for sportsmen, especially competitive sportsmen, that that is their capacity size, that does nothing but actually take a fringe upon the rights of someone that is just a God-faring, law-abiding citizen. And further, if even the thought was, even if that's the case, I don't care, we need to get rid of these. Well, the fact of the matter is the people of Vermont actually are concerned that now the only people that will have these are the bad people. And so in fact, I just heard evidence even over the weekend that the store down in Brattleboro completely sold out of all of their magazines that would now be illegal. They're gone. They're done. So again, law-abiding citizens are taking note and trying to get what they need. And so if this was actually trying to limit something, it's quite the opposite. And so I do think the members of law enforcement that have come together today as civilians because who better to hear from how to best protect Vermonters than law enforcement? And more so, who better understands how to protect our schools than law enforcement? And I look forward and hope and challenge all of us to start listening to them, start listening to everyone that's actually out there trying to protect Vermonters so that we can keep this state safe. And certainly, S-55 is not the answer. I'm gonna turn it now back to Dennis who's gonna open up the floor to any questions people might have. First, we're gonna hear from Chief Aaron Cochran of the Hardwick Police Department. Good morning, folks. First, I'd like to say thank you for coming. There are multiple law enforcement officers throughout the room today that were not allowed to come in uniform. So I'd just like to recognize them as well and thank them for being here. I can assure you I am a generational Vermonter. My third great-grandfather fought with the 13th Vermont Regiment at Gettysburg Company H. He was an artillery company. Anybody who knows their history knows that the 13th Vermont Regiment was pivotal in Pickett's charge as they flanked General Pickett. So he fought because he was fighting for the people. My father fought during Vietnam in the Army. He as well is here today. And he is here, again, fighting for the people. I would say that that is my job. I took an oath more than 15 years ago to serve the people of this great state and protect your rights. That's why I am here today. And that's why Dennis and I have worked this over the past weekend. We have discussed it with representatives. And again, thank you for being here. And we're here for you. I'm glad to see that we have some support from you as well. Thank you. Thanks, I'd be happy to take any questions. How many law enforcement officers are part of this group or this effort? We don't know. It's a fairly new effort and it's growing by the hour. I can't give you a number. Sorry, I can't. You've been a report here today? Here today, we haven't taken a telly of the number that are here today. Sorry. Is there a name for the group? Vermont Law Enforcement Officers Against Gun Control. Or Vermont Law Enforcement Against Gun Control. How come you could come in uniform but some people couldn't? I can't answer that except that I'm the chief. Some that work obviously have to go with what their department policy and so on. Yeah, and I can add to that a little bit. It wouldn't be appropriate for me and some other officers to come here and claim to represent our agencies or departments. It's just, we're here as individual officers and as Vermont citizens who are really concerned about the safety of our kids and doing something that is actually going to work. Thank you. I see a hand. Yeah, yeah. So there are a couple of attorneys talking and also attorneys. You insist that this is unconstitutional and I'd like you to address that part because I completely disagree with you. And I think it's been challenged institutionally and found to be unconstitutional in other studies so I'm curious about that. Well, let me be very clear. The constitution that I'm talking about is the Vermont Constitution. I agree too. And the Vermont Constitution to the best of my knowledge has never had a challenge. It may shortly, but to date to the best of my knowledge has never had an exact challenge on this issue. I acknowledge that other states or the federal government have gone down the way of having conversation about what is legal and what is not. The Supreme Court in Heller actually said your right to bear arms exists. It is not sacrosanct. It is subject to restriction. But normally those restrictions come with a compelling state interest in language that is narrowly drawn to address the specific problem and is not written over broad. So my question back to you is what is there about the language as it currently exists that you believe will protect my kids in Newark Street School who can't get access to somebody 40 minutes away and a school shooting could be, well, I think every school shooting we have seen in the past 10 years would fit within that 40 minute time period. So we're gonna have that conversation and I would submit that the way it is written is overly broad and it does not directly address the problem that's in front of us. It takes a divergent turn to try to get gun control under the radar screen. But that's not the problem that is in front of us, I would submit. Any color? Okay, well, I have one more question. Number one, thanks to you for not the one of course you're not saying it was. Number two, there was one Vermont constitutional provision that was overturned and that would be the state versus, Rosenthal. Rosenthal. Susan? Rosenthal. Rosenthal, where the Vermont Supreme Court declared permanence repugnant to the Constitution. That was literally, I think, early Vermont Supreme Court decision. But that in itself makes the individual right stand. And we will be in court right against this unconscionable and unconstitutional bill. Thank you. You appreciate the statements, I think we are going to direct it more toward questions. And so does anyone have a question? You're Daniel Sword, Chief. As you survey the political landscape right now, what gives you hope that you can put this gene back in the bottle as it relates to these four provisions that are now being considered? Well, I can only speak to my personal experience. And I believe that anybody in this room that you see wearing orange can explain this as well, if not better than I can. And that is we have facts in the way of numbers and we have the truth on our side. History has shown that if you apply similar legislation to other locales, the more gun control that you enact in an area, violent crime has a tendency to go up as citizens are allowed to protect themselves through being concealed carry that is opened up in areas, violent crime goes down. If what we're going to do is make laws that are going to restrict citizens from being able to protect themselves, how is that going to affect the criminal that's going to prey on our citizens and our kids? It's going to have no effect on the criminal, it's only going to restrict those who work, want to protect themselves, want to protect their kids. Sir, if that's 55 does pass your reading today, what then? I would defer to Jensen. Well, no, Santa will be back in Jonesville House. Goes back to the Senate. It has been modified considerably since it left the Senate, so the Senate's going to be asked the question, do you agree, do you disagree, do you propose further amendments in the process? Beyond procedural, sir, if I might, excuse me, what does it mean for the folks here today? I understand that's not the goal, but if it does move forward, does your position change, does the message change, or does it continue? When one seeks to make an argument about preserving your constitutional rights, that argument should never change. You may have legislation out there that has gone through and somebody believes that was appropriate, but whatever means are necessary by way of legal challenges should continue. There will be people who are directly impacted. Let's take, for instance, the Century Arms folks in Swanton. You pass a bill that has magazine capacity limited, and all of a sudden a lot of your product that you've been manufacturing is no longer there. How do you react when you have suddenly lost the reason to employ 100 or so people? You filed litigation and you have to keep that fight up. I am hoping with that one component that my governor will actually change his mind on this bill because that is far beyond anything that left the Senate when he was talking about whether he could support it. I have yet to hear what his reaction would be on that particular issue, but it is the kind of thing that you raise that we all need to be paying attention to. The unintended consequences have not been fully discussed. A lot of these people are here today are angry because they have not felt like they've had their day at the legislature, and I can sympathize with that. So if there is something coming out of the house that ends up back in the Senate, we're gonna have a very healthy debate once again, and if for some reason or other it does get by the Senate, there'll be another healthy debate before the governor signs it, and if the governor should sign it, I am hoping that there will be every legal means expended in order to try to combat what has happened here. Could any of the police speak to the enforceability of the provisions in S-55? Specifically, there was a mention of the high capacity magazine restriction that that would be difficult to enforce. Could you just walk us through what that would look like? Well, these magazines, they're not serialized like firearms. If you make a pass a law that says, well, this item is now going to be illegal to sell after, let's say, July 1st, how is anybody going to know when that magazine was purchased? If somebody chose to go to New Hampshire and purchase one of those magazines and bring it back to the state, a law enforcement officer does not have any way of knowing when a magazine was purchased and when it was not. And as I said before, there's at a minimum tens of thousands of these magazines, possibly hundreds of thousands of these magazines in this state alone, it's completely unenforceable. Question for Senator Browning. If I could just add to that, law enforcement has had an extreme burden, as you know, over the past several years with the drug crime problem that we have in the state with heroin. And I can tell you crack cocaine is another up and coming problem that we've seen. And adding this burden onto law enforcement to track down magazines with over 10 rounds, with a capacity over 10 rounds is a burden that we can't hold. We are focused on the drug problem right now and we need to stay focused on that in order to change the landscape back to the Vermont and we all know. Senator Browning. Well, just hang on a second, I want to respond to that revision as well. And by the way, it's a lot of fun being able to step up to a podium after I usually cross-examine these guys. One other provision that is completely unenforceable is the background check. As one of my colleagues on the Senate floor said, if a transfer takes place in the woods, will anybody hear it? This legislation passes. And Paul Heinz wants to make another purchase in a parking lot. How will police ever know that that has happened unless Paul or the other person self-report? Now, I've been representing alleged criminals for 35 years. I don't know any one of them that would be going through the motions of self-reporting their activity. And that's one of the things I find so frustrating about this legislation. How will it protect the kids in Newark Street School? Maybe it won't. I'm sorry, Paul, go ahead. It's okay. Okay, so the underlying case to that is State v. Carlton goes back a few more years. And that really is the core of our right to carry unimpinished by permits and registration. Basically stated, the Supreme Court saw in our Constitution multiple places where the intent of carrying is at the heart of the right, and that if your intent is not full-onious or malicious or aggravated in any violent way, that your right is unimpinjable, cannot restrict it, period. And so it seems to me that this ban of any type on commonly reused types and accessories flies in the face of that and assumes full-onious intent on the part of the grand population just to catch a few criminals. So Bill, a bachelor's degree, three years in law school, then get past the bar exam, and you're good, okay? I wanna be clear that I know why you guys are making those statements. I said earlier that there hadn't been legislation on this subject. I'm talking about legislation on the proposals that are in S55. There have been Supreme Court opinions in Vermont that have delineated what the right is, but we've never challenged these specific provisions, and that's what I was talking about. I hope that's a little clearer. But thanks for that. Somebody said earlier that if there's more gun control that violent crime goes up, so I just wanna clarify, are you saying that if S55 passes that there will be more violent crime, or what kind of impact are you projecting? What I'm saying is that if this passes, the only people that are gonna be, how it's gonna work here in Vermont, the only people that are gonna be restricted are law-abiding citizens. The criminals are not gonna be restricted. So would there be a harm that you foresee as a result of this, people actually being injured? Well, I think it goes back to the old saying, never bring a knife to a gunfight. If you are gonna restrict a person's right to protect themselves and defend themselves and their family, yet you're not going to restrict, there's no way to restrict the criminal from doing that, then you're putting the average citizen at a disadvantage. May I? If a criminal comes into my house with a 30-round magazine and I'm limited to a 10-round magazine, he's got 20 more shots than I do. Dennis, have any, other than those who are here as individuals, have any police departments or other law enforcement organizations back to your organization in any official capacity? Yes, actually, Sheriff Bill Bonac, the sheriff in Orange County is the president of the Vermont Sheriff's Association. He wanted to be here today, but took him and could not make it. They have been very supportive over, the original bill as it was drafted with the first five sections until it started to morph into what we're talking about here today. How do you respond to critics who have said this organization and the name of it might confuse members of the public into thinking that state law enforcement agencies have taken an official stance on this political issue? Well, I would encourage folks to do a little research and read up. It's really that simple to know what you're looking into and what a group represents and who they are. Question in the back? This is not a talk about. This is what she heard. It's really about, thank you very much for being here. Is there any more information that I was going to take place this afternoon that compares that they wanted us out here before they had some kind of accountability at least publicly? Yeah. All I can say is that I received word from my leadership. I'm a Republican, so my leadership was informed that they received word from House leadership, which you hear that term means that Democrat leadership, that this bill's going to be taken up in the afternoon. It's not going to be in the morning. Nancy Johnson just moving on, all of a sudden, we're competing. So, but again, we can, that's all I know. We can see why the move happened, but that's why it moved. I do want to speak, if I may, too. Joe brought up some concerns regarding the piece, regarding background checks. And something that I brought up a little bit on the floor, but the more and more I thought of it over the weekend, it really has concerned me, too, about going back to some of those unintended consequences that was alluded to as well, and actually maybe the potential of actually hindering people's willingness to actually seek treatment, if needed, even medically treatment with respect to it. If someone does have, has a real pain or other issues and actually do amuse medicinal marijuana, a part of this proposal, too, is, as we all know, that any kind of transfer. And then again, this isn't a sale, too. I just want to make it even clearer from members of the press that was here, because I saw so many of the lines that private sales, this is so much more than that. This is also transfers, gifts. You know, your best friend that you've known since they were, you know, you were three, you know, now, you know, giving it to him at 80. You know, even then, you're going to have to find an FFL if you can find one to actually do this transfer for you as a mere gift. And the concern I have is for Vermonters, that quite frankly might, you know, because I know there's people at different places when it comes to marijuana, but at least under, in this body, we've been, I think, pretty much universal over the last few votes with respect to medicinal marijuana, and the need to actually have that as a way to treat persons. But under the guidelines of the background check, there's a section that you and the transfer have to consent to that you know that you are not unlawfully possessing or using marijuana. It even has a bold print and big bold black letters makes it clear that even if your state has legalized marijuana for medicinal or recreational use, it's still against federal law. And so it directs that if you're doing that, you still have to check, no. So think about the reality here. So then you really have one of two choices then. Either if you're someone that is treating yourself that way, then you need to either lie, which on the next page of things, you're subduing yourself to a felony for perjury with the federal government. I think all of us who have watched things have happened recently and also recently. I mean, that's always how people get caught in federal cases. Either that happens to you and that individual. Or so then you lie about it so that we can have the gun or you don't protect yourself. And I don't wanna put anybody in that situation. That doesn't seem right or appropriate. The Parkland Shilger, which was a tragic situation in Florida, 39 complaints were filed against an individual, including the FBI, local law enforcement, school officials, what he is, a student there. Didn't government fail us and had nothing to do with the guns? 39 complaints, I just said that I was in Florida from 10 days down there and I was up 30 miles from that school, I'm just talking to strangers. Not one person ever said anything about the guns. I just said our government just failed. Another point that could be made regarding the tragedy in Florida is a shooter did not use high capacity mags. All right, no one's gonna stop somebody. Oh yeah, we don't have time for that. Are there any more questions for the press? Other else? I do have to go vote on those amendments on this. I know. I'm just gonna take a swing at that because I wanna make sure everybody here knows we actually have done something in the building to take care of the problem you're talking about. And that is S-221. It's the only bill we have right now that would look into the developing mind of a shooter and provide authorities with the ability to try to interdict. I can't stress that enough. It passed the Senate unanimously. I hope it gets through the House unanimously and we actually come out of here working to provide protection for those kids in the Newark Street School and in every other school in the state. We'll take one more question and then we're gonna wrap it up. The other piece. You've had about 10 questions. She's the reporter at this conference. So what about everybody else? This is what you've been doing to us. Maybe a lot of us have testified. You're pushing us away. Let some of the other people over here. Maybe take the press. Why no hearings? Exactly. Hold on. We're gonna take your question too. The other piece of S-225 that has not been mentioned is the ban on bump stocks. Is that something that the leaders of this press conference would support? I can tell you, regarding bump stocks, when after Las Vegas, that's where the world became aware of bump stocks. And if you speak to any serious firearms enthusiast, I would say many law enforcement, I can speak to all law enforcement, trainers, people that have worked in tactical environments, they're gonna tell you that a bump stock is a novelty item. There's a reason why you don't see bump stocks on SWAT teams, for example. They do make a gun sound like a machine gun. They do allow that gun to spew more bullets faster out the barrel, but they don't increase the lethality of a gun. Imagine if the Las Vegas shooter from his purge had used a bolt action scope rifle, like a majority of hunters here in Vermont use are similar to what they use. How much more deadly that could have been. You know, that's a simple hunting type gun, not a tactical gun. The bump stock is a novelty item. Nobody got too bent out of shape about it. Even the NRA was on board with the bump stock and reclassifying them as a different type of firearm, much like a machine gun, say. But it then morphed from bump stocks onto what we have today. But though you would support that piece of the bill to add the state law? As a group, I can't speak to that. Again, you asked about numbers. Personally, do you support that piece? Personally, I guess I haven't got too bent out of shape about it, but it's getting to the point, to the principle of the matter at this point. And we have one more question. Sir, these questions of volume, not as law enforcement, not as attorneys, as private citizens of Vermont, how do you feel about this house, the people's house, excluding the citizens from giving testimony on S-55? How does he cross up to S-55? As I mentioned before, to me it's kind of like dirty pool. I think that especially on an issue like this, whether it's gun control legislation, marijuana, same-section marriage, you name it, if it's an issue that happens to be just very divisive, then our politicians need to hear the people and hear both sides, or however many sides there are. I want to thank you all for coming. We really appreciate your support, and I'll let the politicians blow over it. I want to thank you all for coming as well, and as a non-gun owner, I know why I'm not allowing any of you to testify. You guys look ugly as hell to me. All seriousness, in answering your question, this is the people's house. It always will be the people's house. And the people should have the right. Not the press's house. Thank you very much for coming. Thank you.