By Guy Page
Vermonters purchased firearms at a slightly lower rate in 2021 than in 2020, as measured by applications for federal background checks.
There is no public record of actual purchases or ownership of Vermont firearms. Unlike many other states, Vermonters do not need a state permit or license to own a gun. All that is needed is to pass a federally-required background check. Therefore, the best measure of gun purchases is National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), which since 1998 has conducted more than 300 million background checks on people who want to own a firearm or explosive, as required by law.
A one-to-one correlation cannot be made between a firearm background check and a firearm sale because some legal gun sales do not require a background check.
In 2020 – due in part to social and political unrest, police defunding, more people staying home, and concern about current and proposed gun restrictions – there were 57,965 Vermont applications to the NICS.
Last year, the total fell to 51,549. The first four months of the year started off with a ‘bang,’ averaging over 5000 applications/month. But beginning in May, applications declined to average under 4000/month.
The highest month in 2021 was January, with 6,012, compared to March 2020 with 7,023.
Categories: Gunrights
With the Legislature’s recent passage of more virtue-signaling gun restrictions, we can bet that the numbers will be up again for 2022. There is no better marketer of firearms than a liberal politician…thanks demoprogs!
More twisted logic from the government. Many owners want to trade a firearm for another for whatever reason. A person walks into the gun store with a legally owned firearm to trade it in. He or she already has a working firearm, but in order to get a new one they will have to get the governments permission through a background check to exercise a right listed in the Bill of Rights to leave the store with the new firearm. Even police officers have to do this.
It is also illegal for the federal government via the ATF to create a firearms data registry but they just got caught scanning old records into a data base. Private transfers have to be cleared through a federal background check also. For years private sales were legal and most responsible gun owners would not sell to someone they didn’t know or trust. Now the sale can be tracked and it is available to be added to a gun registry by owner.
Some people I know should have to get a background check before talking or reporting like the media. However, the government hasn’t labeled free speech as dangerous to ones health so what about the phrase, the pen is mightier than the sword. How can one right be lessor then another. Since criminals get illegal firearms through illegal means and seem to have no problems getting them with no background checks or registry entries.
I will never understand why lawmakers believe that restricting law abiding gun owners will somehow stop crimes committed by criminals. The other reason makes more sense. An unarmed population is easier to control. Just look north for an example whose name is Justin Trudeau and an unarmed Canada.
ALL GUN CONTROL UNDER THE CONSTITUTION IS ILLEGAL! Government does not give us our rights. Our rights are not given to us by the Constitution. Our rights are given to us by God and are inherent to us as human beings and by the Laws of Nature. These rights that we are born with are affirmed to us by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments of the Constitution and specify what the government can and cannot do to us as citizens of the United States. Government’s only power is the power which is enumerated to it by the Constitution. The federal government, a state, county or town cannot pass a law contrary to the Constitution. Article 6 the Supremacy Clause makes the Constitution the supreme law of the land. Under our Constitution the government is not delegated the authority to legislate, enforce, or adjudicate laws pertaining to the exercise of our rights under the Constitution – Period. The government is not delegated the authority by our Constitution to require the government’s permission to exercise any right affirmed to us under the Constitution. The government is not delegated the authority by our Constitution to compel us to waive our guaranteed 4th Amendment right to be secure from unwarranted interrogation, search, or seizure in the absence of probable cause of criminal conduct. Or compel us to waive our guaranteed 5th Amendment right to due process as a precondition to being allowed (or denied) the exercise of our right to keep and bear arms. This violation of our 4th and 5th Amendment rights happens every time that we are interrogated under penalty of perjury without probable cause that a crime has been committed when we fill out B.A.T.F.E form 4473 to purchase a firearm. The government is not delegated the authority by our Constitution to compel us to waive our 10th Amendment right to a federal government exercising only those powers delegated to it by the United States Constitution, and State governments are prohibited the exercise of any power prohibited to the States by the United States Constitution.
The government is not delegated the authority under the 14th Amendment to make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States. Government is not delegated by our Constitution the authority to license firearm dealers or operate or fund the most powerful anti-rights government agency on the planet called the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. Since no Amendment in the Bill of Rights has been repealed thru Article V or by a National Convention of States, the only legal way to change the Constitution, all existing gun control laws presently violate five Amendments of the Bill of Rights and goes against the settled lawof two Supreme Court decisions, Heller vs the District of Columbia 2008 and McDonald vs Chicago 2010. Both decisions affirm that the people’s right to keep and bear arms is an individual right and that citizens are allowed firearms in common use, those small arms or those that operate like them and are issued to our National Guard which comprises of citizen soldiers.
The purpose of compelled background checks as a precondition to allowing or denying the transfer of a firearm is to deceive firearm owners and prospective owners into unknowingly waiving their rights guaranteed by the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 10th and 14th Amendments so they will have no rights left to claim when the government decides to register and confiscate our firearms. We have a right to keep and bear arms, not a privilege to keep and bear arms. Our rights are beyond the reach of the government and no citizen has to ask government permission to exercise a right. Government has no authority delegated to it by the Constitution to deceive its citizens into waiving their rights or acquiescing to the loss of their rights by subterfuge, scam, fraud, or force. DO NOT VOLUNTARILY GIVE UP YOUR RIGHTS !
Gun purchases may be down, but ammo purchases are up. Ammo is flying off the shelf.