By Guy Page

Eric Davis, president of Gun Owners of Vermont, is scheduled to testify Thursday, Jan. 20 at 9 am before House Judiciary Committee about S30, making carrying firearms in a hospital a criminal offense.

A person found guilty of violating S30 “shall be imprisoned for not more than one year or fined not more than $1,000.00, or both,” according to the bill approved by the Senate last year, and now under review by House Judiciary.

A January 9 amendment by Rep. Bill Notte (D-Rutland) would add a waiting period of up to 30 days for a federal background “delay” whereas federal law permits a firearms dealer to transfer ownership after three business days. 

The Notte amendment also empowers health care providers to “notify a law enforcement officer when the provider believes in good faith that disclosure of the information is necessary to prevent or lessen a serious and imminent threat to the health or safety of a person or the public,” meaning “the health care provider reasonably believes that the patient poses an extreme risk of causing harm to themselves or another person by purchasing, possessing, or receiving a dangerous weapon or by having a dangerous weapon within the patient’s custody or control.” 

In a Jan. 16 commentary on the GOVT website, Davis points out that making hospitals gun-free will make them more, not less, vulnerable to mass killings.

“Mass shootings overwhelmingly occur in gun-free zones as killers know there will be no resistance,” Davis said. “When you make it a crime to carry, the people who carry concealed as a precaution will largely go unarmed as they do not want to break the law. This ensures that unless the hospital employs private security, or there happens to be a random police officer there, any sort of meaningful mechanism of defense against a person intent on committing harm will be absent when needed the most.”

Davis added that the hospital ban is just a ” incremental tactic” by the gun control lobby.

“The argument that it’s necessary to ban the carrying of firearms in any one place or another is an incremental tactic used by gun control groups to chip away at the right to keep and bear arms. The long game is to ensure that if the peasants insist on having an individual right to own a gun, that the list of places that right exists be narrowed as much as possible. Just look at the bills introduced every year that would mandate keeping guns and ammo locked up separately in one’s own home and thus useless for personal protection.”

Gun rights supporters last week testified that current law covering unlawful trespass and other crimes allows hospitals to prohibit anyone carrying weapons from gaining access to a hospital or remaining on the premises. However, lead sponsor Sen. Phil Baruth (D-Burlington) said last year he specifically wants a criminal violation for carrying firearms on hospital property. 

If approved by House Judiciary and the full House, changes to S30 would need to be reconciled with the Senate version approved last year.