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Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly listed the sponsor of H.381 as Judiciary Chair Martin LaLonde. The Chronicle regrets the error.
By Paul Bean
Lawmakers on February 28 introduced a bill that seeks to prohibit the manufacture, distribution, sale, purchase, or transfer of gas-operated semi-automatic firearms, a category that includes popular rifle models like the AR-15.
Sponsored by Democrats Rep. Angela Arsenault (Williston), Rep. Barbara Rachelson (Burlington), and Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Putney), H.381 was referred to the House Committee on Judiciary. Reps. Arsenault and Rachelson are members of Judiciary, the lower chamber’s most influential committee for firearms legislation. The bill is unlikely to proceed this session, as it did not pass out of Judiciary by the March 14 Crossover deadline.
Congress and other state Legislatures have seen similar bills banning gas-operated firearms introduced. The New Mexico Legislature earlier this month passed a similar bill out of committee.
Supporters of the bill – such as X poster and policy advocate Sam Donnelly (below) – say it aims to address concerns over gun violence by targeting firearms that use gas-operated systems to cycle rounds.
Donnelly has affiliations with childcare payroll tax advocacy, the Burlington Business Association, and the Reproductive Liberty Amendment.
“The bill (H.381) targets gas-operated systems, mainly in assault rifles, not all semiautomatics. Pistols and submachine guns typically use blowback systems (not that you’d know Paul). Maybe read the bill before freaking out next time.” wrote Sam Donnelly on X in reply to my post “Vermont liberal lawmakers trying to ban Semiautomatic weapons…”
“For someone who claims to care about transparency and truth, you sure do generalize and mislead people a lot,” replied Donelly as a final little jab.
In fact, the AR-15 (which stands for Armalite Rifle, not Assault Rifle as often assumed), is a gas-operated firearm.
Opponents see the bill as an overreach that infringes on Second Amendment rights. Upon further research and review of the proposed legislation, users on X pointed out below Sam’s post that gas-operated systems included a very high percentage of firearms:
As a measure of transparency and integrity, I reached out on X to one of our sponsors, Parro’s Gun Shop in Waterbury, to confirm the accuracy of claims made by users. “Any ban on firearms goes directly against the 2nd amendment,” replied Parros in a post on X. “All nonsense.”
The bill’s fate remains uncertain as it awaits further discussion in committee. Its introduction follows a wave of gun-related proposals in the Vermont Legislature this session, including measures to limit firearms in government buildings and establish a voluntary licensing system. However, several anti-gun bills failed to advance past the March 14 crossover deadline, signaling resistance to sweeping changes.
This morning VDC reached out to Governor Scott’s office to find out if the bill were to reach his desk, would he veto it?
“This isn’t a bill that we’ve been monitoring,” wrote the Governor’s Press Secretary, Amanda Wheeler in reply by email. “It looks like it has a long way to go before reaching the Governor’s desk for action so it’s too soon to know what action the Governor may take.”
H.381 did not advance through the March 14 crossover deadline for the 2025 legislative session. No anti-gun bills, including H.381, met this deadline, effectively stalling them for the 2025 session. However, as it’s part of a two-year biennium the bill could still be revisited next year.
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Categories: Gunrights
When gun powder explodes in the chamber of ANY gun, a hot GAS is created which propels the bullet through and then from the gun barrel.
Vermont “Law makers” who’ve never held any sort of tool in their soft hands, and who clearly never read our Federal] US CONSTITUTION….just might be sueable, personally for this kind of idiocy. –Dennis Morrisseau ltmrebellion@gmail.com
Gas operated semi auto shotguns made by companies like Remington, Winchester, Browning, Benelli, and Beretta are widely used in Skeet, Trap, Sporting Clays as well as hunting. Gas operated rifles like the AR based rifles, and WWII vintage Garands are also widely used in competitions and hunting . By the way, A.R. is the abreviation for Armalite Rifle, the company that produced it, not automatic rifle, which the AR is not !
They may want to re-read article 16 of the Vermont Constitution.
They don’t care about any Constitution.
The most often used weapon of inflicting mass casualties both in the States and in Europe is the automobile/truck. Vermont should ban these weapons immediately. 🙂
The link to H.381 goes to another lalonde masterpiece regarding larceny.
The link to H.381, lalonde’s fanciful ban on ‘gas blowback’ firearms is here…
https://legislature.vermont.gov/Documents/2026/Docs/BILLS/H-0381/H-0381%20As%20Introduced.pdf
Even before phil scott signed S.55 in 2018, letting the camel’s nose under the tent-
lalonde has been sponsoring and introducing legislation to eliminate firearms from Vermont. His efforts have seemingly only increased the crime related to guns, particularly in Chittenden County and his home district. By definitions in H.381, way more than AR style rifles will be illegal to transfer, as stated in the article. lalonde seems to be yet another chittenden county legislator that represents his donors and elitist friends not, the constituent. lalonde’s official biography on the legislative website lists his 4th generation membership in “The LeRoy Hunting Club” of Alpine MI. Makes one question what the members of “The Leroy Hunting Club” hunt. Donors perhaps?
The most often used weapon for mass causalities used in Vermont. Our legislature.
Martin LaLonde DID NOT Sponsor this bill as he is not on the sponsor list. He is Chair of the House Judiciary and at some point may pick up this bill for discussion, but it will be fought tooth and nail by VTFSC and GOVT.
Not that we have to fight it very hard – Supreme Court (SCOTUS) has done, and will continue to do, this work for us.
Sadly, the sponsors of this bill are completely clueless that the SCOTUS has already opined that firearms “in common use” cannot be banned, and the case of Snope v Brown (formerly Bianchi v Brown) is now in front of SCOTUS along with Ocean State Tactical v RI (a challenge to standard-capacity magazines).
BOTH are awaiting Certiorari; both will have Certiorari granted, and both will be found to be unconstitutional, most likely in the fall 25 time frame.
Wishful thinking; a complete waste of legislative time; and you can thank the sponsors Arsenault, Rachelson and Mrowicki for this.
Thanks for clearing this up Chris.
Our Vt Gov, should at least have thrown you guys a bone, saying there is no way he is going to pass this bill, it will be an automatic veto on his part.
But he didn’t, did he?
This once again just proves how purposely deceptive they truly are.
If you go to Rep. LaLonde’s Legislative “face book” bio you will see “MARTIN LALONDE of South Burlington, Chittenden County, Democrat, was born in Lynwood, California and was raised in Alpena, Michigan, where he returns annually as a fourth-generation member of the LeRoy Hunting Club. ” So he is a fourth generation, anti-gun member of a sportsmen’ club ? I Googled LeRoy Hunting Club, and there is such a club. How do you suppose that member,s or officers of a club such as this would feel about his stand on firearm possession, and ownership ? As a former trustee of a local fish and game club I can tell you he would not be one of the most popular members. I’d be willing to bet that his fellow “members” don’t even know about the stands that he regularly takes regarding the 2nd Amendment !
I would challenge Dunelly to try buying an assault rifle. The price is prohibative and the process is slow and cumbersume, not to memtion the $200 tax stamp. Not many can afford an assault rifle. How about outlawing something that is killing large amounts of Vermonters. DRUGS. Oh thats right they are illegal! Hows that w3orking?
What LaLonde and his ignorant and malevolent colleagues consider to be “assault rifles” are pretty much any firearm with semi-automatic action and a scary black appearance. They are coming for them all.
Yep just like California ban everything!!!!!!
Just another LaLonde effort to take one more slice off the salami by defining another category of commonly-owned gun and affixing a scary-sounding term like “gas operated”…scary like “gas chamber” and “leaded gas”. What a phony. What a jackass.
Unbelievable! We just had two Democrat representatives from Lamoille County—God bless them—of all 180 VT legislators create a bill, H.380, to increase violations of conditions of release and failure to appear to felonies, and this first most needed and most common sense legislative proposal to advance public safety and common sense justice is dying on the freaking wall in Lalonde’s committee! But, by golly, let’s ban another gun, or feature, or capacity which will once again penalize law-abiding citizens who want, yes want, to own AR platforms, yet do absolutely zero to stop the bad guys from having and using them.
Utter stupidity and ignorance!
So, it’s OK to violate our constitutional rights. It’s OK to ban guns because they look scary. It’s OK to ban guns because they cause violence. But don’t put the criminal behind bars that wields the weapon because you shouldn’t violate their rights. It’s time to respect our constitutional rights. It’s time to stop blaming guns for violence (it can sit in a corner for a hundred years & never do harm). And it is well past the time to go after the true issues: criminals & mentally unstable individuals. No sane person gets off on killing people, just ask a military veteran.
We have a Constitution for a reason, maybe these so called elites in the statehouse need to read it, they’ll tell you they did, the problem is they don’t understand it !!
Wake up people
The left never gives up does it? It’s easier to blame guns for problems in violence but we can’t address the drugs being trafficked up the I-91 and U.S. 7 corridors by gang members from Hartford and Springfield who make local headlines for all the wrong reasons. I also blame Sarah George for not prosecuting crimes, the mayor of Burlington for restricting the police and the Burlington City Council for aiding the mayor.
Guns don’t kill people, people kill people be it with a car or a baseball bat but we don’t see our or elected officials trying to ban you from driving to the ball game.
The fact that LaLonde sponsored this is proof positive that the legislature is NOT operating under their own direction. LaLonde knows NOTHING about how ANY firearm functions. That was quite obvious in 2018 when the first round of gun controls passed due to Scott’s spinelessness! I was there when they were there trying to amend the magazine ban and trying to address the oversight regarding virtually every semi-auto handgun. He was like a deer in the headlights. We are supposed to have representatives who answer to the ELECTORATE not do the bidding of Soros or some other NGO! He is such a milquetoast pawn…🤮
My bad, I quickly skimmed this before realizing that LaLonde was NOT the sponsor! Sorry. I do still maintain that he doesn’t know anything about firearm function AND the legislature is getting scripted instructions from outside of the electorate.
They know exactly what they are doing, they are not stupid they are incredibly cunning and deceptive. This program has been rolled out in many, many countries that were over thrown.
Our basic problem is we don’t have two parties that represent America. We have one party that is hell bent on subverting our country and the other party hell bent on taking money from lobbyist to remain in power.
It’s like a husband and wife of a family, one is sleeping with all the rich men in town, getting all the free vacations and the other is taking bribes for getting things done at work.
American needs an intervention, we need two parties that represent the United States…..and the people. We have neither.
Sam Donnelly: another indoctrinated lib product of VT public schools (defund and VOGE). Absolutely clueless. Hey Sam, guns can’t be violent.
The 2nd Amendment was enumerated in our Bill of Rights by the Constitutional Convention of 1787 to give “We the People” the means to protect the Constitution and the Bill of Rights from those who would take them from us. You can’t take away someone’s right to free speech, freedom of assembly or freedom of religion without first taking away their ability to resist. THE 2nd AMENDMENT DOES NOT GRANT US THE RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS. THE 2nd AMENDMENT PROHIBITS THE GOVERNMENT FROM INFRINGING ON OUR RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS – PERIOD! THEREFORE, ALL GUN CONTROL UNDER THE CONSTITUTION IS ILLEGAL!
When the Commiecrats were trying to protect Roe V Wade all they screamed about was how it was settled law. Yet when it comes to firearms, they ignore settled law.
McDonald v Chicago 2010 is a landmark Supreme Court case that is important to understand. In its most basic form, the decision dismisses the proposition that a State (e.g., NY, IL, CT) or lower government (e.g., Chicago) can supersede or ignore the rights guaranteed in the Constitution, specifically the Second Amendment.
“None of the Court’s precedents forecloses the Court’s interpretation. Neither United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542, nor Presser v. Illinois, 116 U. S. 252, refutes the individual-rights interpretation. United States v. Miller, 307 U. S. 174, does not limit the right to keep and bear arms to militia purposes, but rather limits the type of weapon to which the right applies to those used by the militia, i.e., those in common use for lawful purposes.”
This ruling clarifies the principle that Americans can keep and bear arms that are equivalent to those in common use by the National Guard, which the court considers an example of a “well-regulated militia.” We have a RIGHT to the SAME arms and accessories issued to the National Guard that they use in defense of the United States.
The National Guard’s rifle of issue (and rifle in common use) is the 5.56×45mm (.223) M16A2 a lightweight, air-cooled, gas-operated, magazine-fed, shoulder or hip-fired weapon designed for either automatic fire (3-round bursts) or semiautomatic fire (single shot) through the use of a selector lever and has a magazine capacity of 30 rounds. Civilians can only own (except with the purchase of a special tax stamp from BATFE) the semiautomatic version called the M15 or AR15 not the M16 military rifle version. The present pistol of issue to the U.S. Army is the Sig Sauer P320- M17 or Sig Sauer P320-M18 in 9mm with a 17 Round magazine. The Vermont National Guard uses the Sig Sauer P320- M17
These people are the real nazis. The real tyrants. Because if we know the above information then they know it also. Yet they still try to pass legislation that is blatantly unconstitutional. WE HAVE NO OBLIGATION TO COMPLY TO UNCONSTITUTIONAL LAWS
Unconstitutional Official Acts
16 Am Jur 2d, Sec 177 late 2d, Sec 256:
The general misconception is that any statute passed by legislators bearing the appearance of law constitutes the law of the land. The US. Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and any statute, to be valid, must be In agreement. It is impossible for both the Constitution and a law violating it to be valid; one must prevail. This is succinctly stated as follows:
The General rule is that an unconstitutional statute, though having the form and name of law is in reality no law, but is wholly void, and ineffective for any purpose; since unconstitutionality dates from the time of it’s enactment and not merely from the date of the decision so branding it. An unconstitutional law, in legal contemplation, is as inoperative as if it had never been passed. Such a statute leaves the question that it purports to settle just as it would be had the statute not been enacted. Since an unconstitutional law is void, the general principles follow that it imposes no duties, confers no rights, creates no office, bestows no power or authority on anyone, affords no protection, and justifies no acts performed under it..… A void act cannot be legally consistent with a valid one. An unconstitutional law cannot operate to supersede any existing valid law. Indeed, insofar as a statute runs counter to the fundamental law of the lend, it is superseded thereby. No one Is bound to obey an unconstitutional law, and no courts are bound to enforce it. The Supreme Court’s decision is as follows; “An unconstitutional act is not law; it confers no rights; it imposes no duties; affords no protection; it creates no office; it in legal contemplation, as inoperative as though it has never been passed”. Norton vs Shelby County 1886 – 118 US 425 p.442.
Alexander Hamilton explains unconstitutional law in Federalist No.76; “No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid. To deny this, would be to affirm, that the deputy is greater than his principal; the servant is above his master; that the representatives of the people are superior to the people themselves; that men acting by virtue of powers, may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid”.
Yehuda Remer: “People with ARs don’t get in cattle cars”.