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by Chris Bradley
On November 18th, the Burlington City Council passed a Resolution, and they then adopted an Ordinance, which would ban possession of firearms in any establishment that sells liquor.
By taking those two actions, first by declaring their intent and then passing an Ordinance implementing that ban, the Burlington City Council broke Vermont law.
The law, 24 VSA 2295, better known as the “pre-emption statute”, is clear:
“Except as otherwise provided by law, no town, city, or incorporated village, by ordinance, resolution, or other enactment, shall directly regulate hunting, fishing, and trapping or the possession, ownership, transportation, transfer, sale, purchase, carrying, licensing, or registration of traps, firearms, ammunition, or components of firearms or ammunition.”
By enacting that statute, the legislature wisely decided that Vermont would not become a patchwork of conflicting ordinances which changed at town lines, thereby ensuring uniformity and consistency of firearm laws across Vermont as Vermonters travelled around the state.
Burlington is experiencing more violent crime, and Vermonters, in general, are bypassing the city for shopping and entertainment. Many Vermonters believe this shift in crime is the result of the questionable move by the City Council to defund and reduce the size of the Burlington Police Department, coupled with the desire to never incarcerate people even though they may repeatedly do bad things.
For many law-abiding citizens, the result of these changes regarding the punishment of criminal activity, both minor and major, has encouraged more people who have never owned a firearm to purchase one. It has also encouraged gun owners, law-abiding people who can pass background checks without any problem, to conceal carry for their own protection.
In recent memory, there has been only one well-publicized incident of a woman shooting a man outside of a bar in Burlington. An altercation occurred in a bar in Burlington which resulted in two individuals being escorted out through different doors, whereupon the woman walked around to the other door, pulled a pistol from her purse, and then proceeded to commit cold-blooded murder.
The creation of a “gun free zone” which is not enforced will be nothing more than a false sense of security to anyone who chooses to enter. Unless and until guards are present, along with expensive scanning machines and bag searches, passing a law that says “No Guns Allowed” does nothing more than to create a Zone of Illusionary Protection (ZIP), which is no protection at all. Beyond that, this is not just “guns in bars”, it is guns in any establishment that sells alcohol, which would also mean restaurants and other venues.
In a utopian world, there may not be any need for firearms, but in today’s world that is NOT the case. Innocent people are being horribly affected by violent crime across Vermont and especially in Burlington, and people have a right to defend themselves.
At this juncture, it would seem appropriate for the Vermont AG to inform the Burlington City Council that it has broken Vermont law, with these actions properly set aside as being illegal.
Author is President and Executive Director for the Vermont Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs (VTFSC).
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Categories: Burlington, Commentary, Crime, Local government
“Is Burlington above the Law?” Except for the ones they like, of course, “Yes.” After all, there are more progressives per square mile in BTV than anywhere else in the state. They all operate by what feels good, not by the law.
Brilliant idea! Hey, why don’t we outlaw drugs while we’re at it? And domestic violence? … and….
Politicians that don’t uphold the law….
Burlington wants to be that virtuous jurisdiction that challenges Vermont’s pre-emption law and gets the legislature to simply repeal it. Baruth and LaLonde are looking for that next step in “common sense public safety” laws infringing on God-given self defense natural law. Burlington doesn’t have a gun problem…it has a violent crime problem. It has a problem with a county prosecutor who reveres perpetrator victimhood and feels that “incarceration is obsolete”. A city ordinance or a state law prohibiting carry in a liquor-licensed establishment is unenforceable and will only apply to the law-abiding…it will not apply to the kind of trash that is typically involved in Burlington’s shooting incidents.
Sorry to use the word “trash” referring to human beings, but our current President has made that ok…
Burlington, with its new DEI Mayor and her gaggle of fools known as the ” City Council,” has now embarked on making this cesspool safe even though they de-funded the police and reduced their headcount to catastrophe levels and wonder why the Chief is leaving, and crime and drugs are rampant.
Now, these masterminds have decided to infringe on law-abiding citizens’ rights; I guess these haven’t read the US Constitution, but being, they have turned, Burlington
into a cesspool with crime, drugs, and the only firearm issues in the City have come from the ” new residents” roaming the streets. do they think these criminals are going to follow their new ordinance, now that’s laughable.
So, to all the business owners, If you feel safe under this proposal, well, good luck, as all the law-abiding citizens ” will not ” visit your establishments. That means money lost, but your taxes are the same, and the thugs will now visit your establishments, so good luck, you’re going to need it……………….. but then again, you supported these inept clowns ……… make your signs ” Big ” so everyone knows !!!
Shut off all federal and Vermont tax and grant funds to Burlington Vermont.
No pay for the police until thy take action against these crooks. The police are allowing this crap to continue and should be held accountable. Maybe we can find a Vermont Sheriff that would do this job.
Burlington wants female restaurant workers and bartenders to be assaulted and raped, we get it. Most assault deaths in Vermont related to alcohol has come from a fist punch like the bread and puppet incident. There is nothing stopping a bar, restaurant, or concert hall owner from having their own no guns rule.
Don’t these idiots have other things to be working on? Why does everything they do have to be illegal?
I bartended downtown for many years and witnessed an actual rape in progress on Monroe Street in 2008 after the bars closed. It was one of our local refugees who followed the girl home from Red Square. She was crying “get him out of me” as I pulled him off and proceeded to beat his face in. A carload of college boys from UVM stopped their car and me and called the cops. Despite my testimony, the judge still allowed him to plead to a reduced sentence that saved him from deportation. I bet we still pay for his low income housing to somewhere too—- while other vets I know are homeless or already dead. Time we take our communities back people…. Cause if I’m being honest, those couple punches in 2008 on that Mali rapists’ face were the last time I really felt effective.
That’s it, Burlington, go after law abiding citizens AGAIN. The bad guys who continue to raise your crime rate won’t care and since you have defunded the police AND have more community overwatch on the department AND Sarah George doesn’t prosecute, the bad guys will do whatever they want and they know that nothing will be done about it. Congratulations on screwing up royally.
Maybe it’s time for a peaceful walk up and down Burlington city streets ensuring we walk by the police department showing our support, enter a few establishments that sell alcohol and lastly stopping at city hall to show our displeasure with their actions.
On this walk we should proudly openly carry cordless hole punchers.
If some of those “in charge” in Vermont weren’t adopting an illegal drug based financial plan we wouldn’t be in this mess. Vote out the recent “implants” and reverse every law they have enacted. False security is not security as Chris states. WE NEED TO halt the RETARDED overspending plan and the attempts to then try backing those expenditures with what amounts to falsely gained funds from “government programs” (AKA MORE TAX DOLLARS). To put it plainly for those in the back – this is tax extortion mainly based on your now falsely inflated property values. BIG CITY IDEALS DO NOT WORK IN RETIREMENT HAVENS AND RETIREMENT HAVENS SUPPORT SANE ENVIRONMENTS. Remember – Vermont has been a tourism and retirement state that people want(ed) to come to essentially forever. The people who migrated from other states since 9/11 and Covid need to stop turning Vermont into the population dense states you left. Period. I implore all sane minded Vermonters to hunt em down, give em an earful! You came here for a better life because you liked what you saw. Stop extorting log time, sane, Vermonters for your personal gain. We’ve had it!
Chris – thank you for all your diligence and hard work man!
believe VT supremes have upheld that statute as well involving other town ordinances
As in Nuclear Deterrence, which has worked well since the end of WW2, perhaps arming all the citizen in BTV would ensure an opportunity for either blowing each other away via mutually assured destruction or peaceful coexistence.
I would venture that MAD may be the best option for Burlington given its current state.
For years I’ve advocated for dumping a 10-wheeler full of Mac-10’s on the south side of Chicago as a way to solve their gun violence problem. Maybe that approach would also now work in Burlington,Vt…..
So subversion is a tricky military operation. They know they can’t make these changes nationally. They know they can’t make them in most cases on the state level. But they do know they can make the changes in key cities in key states, so this is part of the whole plan.
We are in an asymmetric war against the republic. Most officials believe we are a democracy or should be, of which the gun owners are most keen to understand why this is such a grevious error to say the least.
They are following the plan, it also has nothing to do with truth, love or our republic. Easily countered once you know the game, they can’t change, because they get canceled if they do.
Vermont has been subverted, 10 people run the show in Montpelier, and it’s not you or me, nor the Vermont citizens.
State law? What about Constitutional Law?? What is it about “…shall not be infringed” that these moonbats don’t understand?
But sadly, as we’ve learned, there are “laws for thee, but not for me”. What did that Bucks County, Pennsylvania woman say about the justification for counting late *votes*? I believe it was something like “People break the law all the time”.
There ya go.
Once again, Thank you Chris for keeping people informed, and rising to meet the threat head on.
Burlington bars are privately owned they themselves can ban any weapons they want, you don’t need to pass any laws
I won’t be going anywhere that expects me to be frisked before I come in. The first person charged in Burlington for concealed carry in a bar or restaurant will have a civil rights case against the city of Burlington. Wait until a business owner tries to frisk and remove one one the Burlington thugs. They can call the nonexistent police force for help. Remember, the police are always minutes away when seconds count. Having a law abiding concealed carrying person in your business just may save lives. Only a good guy with a gun can stop a bad gut with a gun. That’s why police carry guns.
How many of the thugs connected to the described establishments were already a felon in possession of a firearm? Punishable by 15 years in a federal prison. Yet the city council is so F’n stupid they believe these thugs will be deterred by an ordinance?
Here’s the deal. Like the actors in the movie Freaks chanting, “one of us, one of us”
low information, BTV voters will perpetually elect idealistic simpletons of their own mold.
I don’t fit there, nor do most Vermonters of any achievement.
So burlington makes another law nobody will obey, enforce or hold anyone accountable for!! No wonder no one wants to go into burlington anymore.
It will be easy to avoid violating any Burlington ordinances, if you just avoid Burlington altogether. The danger is that the wheels will undoubtedly be turning to repeal or otherwise modify the existing pre-emption statute so that ANY municipality or jurisdiction can ban carry in certain venues, to be creatively added as time goes on. There is a lot of potential for trouble with this action by Burlington, and we should not be surprised if a few other moonbat-infested cities like Montpelier and Brattleboro join in with the lobbying effort and their own attempts at similar restriction ordinances. The private gun grabber groups must surely be mobilizing as well, as they consider this a do-able restriction as far as public support goes.
Read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand – That defines our current environment – written in 1957 – who lived in lived under communism before her parents fled to the U.S. to be safe and free from what the progressives and communist are recreating in Vt.
Can we all count on a pardon from dementia Joe?