Guns & Roaming
Comments for March for Our Lives (Saturday, June 11, 2022)
I wish I could be with you, but other obligations prevent me from attending the march. Thank you for reading my comments.
I am a candidate for governor of Vermont. I am a fusion candidate, as David Zuckerman, Jim Douglas, and many other Vermonters have been. You will find my name printed on the Republican primary ballot. I welcome write-in votes on all other primary ballots. Visit PeterForVermont.Earth for more information.
Many of you have been moved to attend today’s rally because of recent high-profile mass shootings at Uvalde and Buffalo. These are the most visible of daily events -- well-documented by gunviolencearchive.org. Most mass shootings are also suicides, and suicides account for the majority of gun deaths. No amount of school security and hardening can defeat the many ways that people pursue suicide. With a suicide-by-gun at Mount Mansfield Union High School fresh in their minds, the good voters of Underhill rejected plans to harden Underhill Central School, several years ago. Even with attention shifted to soft strategies for mental health and school safety, two additional student suicides occurred in recent years. More must be done to address the challenges that children and youth face today.
As with so many other issues, political rhetoric has converged around a narrow set of policy options. Politicians on the blue team and the red team have been playing a fierce and endless game of political ping pong. It is just going to be more of the same unless there is something new to talk about. I will get right to the point.
Recently, I heard a religious leader point out that the Second Amendment is not the Second Commandment. The US Constitution is designed to be altered. As provided in Article V, I urge the Vermont Legislature to pass a resolution requesting the repeal of the Second Amendment and properly communicate that resolution to the other states and Congress. An amendment initiated by state request is likely to be sidestepped with US House action long before triggering a constitutional convention — if any changes are to happen at all. Don't worry, all residual power rests with the states, and Articles 9 & 16 even predate the US Constitution. The important thing is to begin the discussion of whether this section of the US Constitution is relevant today, and see if it needs some alteration.
Meanwhile, at the state level, many actions could be taken to reduce the dangers posed by guns in Vermont. I won’t list them all, but I will suggest one that would have multiple benefits: restoring the age of majority to 21. This will allow youth access to guns to receive special treatment during a critical stage of human development. The age of majority was reduced for questionable reasons in the first place. Restoring it to 21 would be a move that is consistent with history — as recorded in the Vermont Constitution — and science. Perhaps it will help reduce the rush to send kids off to war and create a greater opportunity for them to continue in school.
US Senate candidate Niki Thran recently suggested that hunting in Vermont could be increased as a form of tourism. Maybe that’s an opportunity to return hunting toward more traditional techniques that provide an additional challenge to the sport hunter, such as musket or bow. Vermont has had a constitutional right to hunt since 1777 — long enough ago that walking was assumed and the purpose of hunting was subsistence. I wonder how much of today's hunting is actually just an excuse for walking in the woods and the hunting license is the ticket to roaming. Would an update of Chapter II, § 67 of the Vermont Constitution be worth considering?
Auto sears make bump stocks look slow. With either modification, semi-automatic firearms present an ongoing risk for conversion to automatic weapons. Is there any reasonable need for a semi-automatic gun, anyway? There needs to be a frank and open discussion about that risk.
As governor, I would be willing to consider every idea for reducing the risk created by firearms. If you would like a supportive governor who will consider all options, I am with you, at PeterForVermont.Earth.
Some reading:
https://sos.vermont.gov/vsara/learn/constitution/
https://www.gvpedia.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Vermont-Mass-Shootings-State-Fact-Sheet-1.pdf
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-020-0520-6#ref-CR22
https://www.wellbeingintlstudiesrepository.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1006&context=sota_2003
https://hds.harvard.edu/news/2018/03/07/kevin-madigan-eighth-commandment-and-second-amendment
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/02/gun-control-age-limits/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/27/us-readers-on-preventing-mass-shootings
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/06/second-amendment-gun-regulations/661208/
https://www.thetrace.org/2022/03/auto-sear-gun-chip-glock-switch-automatic-conversion/