Critics Claim Vermont Veto Will Cost Lives

AP Photo/Elaine Thompson

Ugh.

This again.

Once again, anti-gunners failed to get their way and, once again, they’re predicting that the refusal to add still more infringements to the Second Amendment will somehow cost lives.

Advertisement

OK, let me back up a bit.

As noted previously, Republican Vermont Gov. Phil Scott vetoed a bill that sought to impose a 24-hour wait on anyone looking to buy a gun. He felt he’d done enough damage to the Second Amendment, and felt it was time to devote resources and efforts into the underlying causes of both violence and suicide.

Now, it seems that proponents of that bill are predicting doom and gloom, yet again.

Proponents of a Vermont bill that would have imposed a 24-hour waiting period to buy handguns say the veto by the Republican governor was a political move that will cost the lives of people contemplating suicide and victims of domestic violence.

The veto Monday by Gov. Phil Scott also drew condemnation from Democratic leaders of both the Vermont House and Senate, which both passed legislation last month that contained the waiting period and a change to an unintended consequence of separate gun legislation signed into law by the governor last year.

“This was nothing else but politics,” said Clai Lasher-Sommers, of the group Gun Sense Vermont, which had supported the legislation partly as a way to reduce the number of people who use firearms to take their own lives and prevent guns from being used in cases of domestic violence.

“When I went to bed, I just started crying,” Lasher-Sommers said Tuesday. “I know in my heart this bill would save lives.”

Advertisement

I’m sick and damn tired of people trying to use suicide prevention as an excuse to infringe on the Second Amendment. People who want to take their own lives will shift to another method or wait a day to take their lives.

As for domestic violence, that’s a two-way street. While some abusers might purchase a gun and kill someone that day, they may be willing to wait a day or two if needed. However, victims may not have 24 hours to wait.

However, all we’re seeing is the typical anti-gun response. Anything they don’t like will cost lives. The streets will run red with blood. Blah. Blah. Blah.

None of it comes to pass, though. It never happens even remotely like they claim it will.

In contrast, when we warn that gun control will lead to increased crime, it happens. It’s almost like we’re clairvoyants or something, only we’re not. We’re aware of how gun control laws work and the fact that they won’t inhibit those you need to worry about, for example, a 24-hour waiting period.

Suicides are going to happen. You can try and stop it through legislation, but it’s still a mental health issue. It should be addressed as a mental health issue, yet anti-gunners keep trying to Shanghai it for their own, demented purposes. They want to pretend this is about saving lives. It’s not. It’s about their inability to accept that they can’t prevent people from doing bad things.

Advertisement

The number of gun-related fatalities anti-gunners tout invariably include the number of suicides committed using a firearm. They account for roughly two-thirds of all gun deaths. That number is dwarfed by the number of defensive firearm uses every year. That alone should be enough reason to knock off the gun control rhetoric.

It’s not. Not for them. That’s because they don’t believe those people exist. So they keep pushing the same tired concepts and predicting genocide or something if we don’t pass gun control laws now.

Again, it won’t happen. You’d think they’d get tired of being wrong, though, wouldn’t you?

Join the conversation as a VIP Member

Sponsored