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Big bang theory: Is Vermont flooding New England with illegal guns?
Vermont Guardian ^ | 12/8/06 | Shay Totten

Posted on 12/09/2006 9:33:24 AM PST by kiriath_jearim

A recent conference on illegal gun trafficking has put Vermont, along with the mayor of the state’s largest city, back in the crosshairs of an ongoing debate in New England.

The debate centers on this basic premise: Do Vermont’s lax gun laws contribute to crimes in other cities by encouraging illegal gun trafficking? According to top law enforcement officials, the answer is no.

Burlington Mayor Bob Kiss, a Progressive, attended a recent regional conference hosted by Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, a Democrat, to talk about ways to stem the flow of illegal guns onto the urban streets of New England. Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York is also raising the issue nationally.

Kiss has raised some eyebrows among gun enthusiasts in Vermont who believe Boston’s constant finger pointing at Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine for having lax gun laws is a political smoke screen to force a debate on whether these states should enact stronger gun laws like Massachusetts. Boston has gone so far as to put up billboards along Interstate 93 laying the blame for illegal gun crimes squarely on Vermont’s doorstep.

“The fact that I signed onto the gun statement, at minimum, was a vote of solidarity with the mayors of much bigger cities, and to recognize that there is a problem,” said Kiss. “While things might not be terrible here, they are more serious in other places.”

Kiss said he is not sure that Burlington has a problem with illegal gun trafficking, but said several recent deaths in the city involving guns concern him, and he wants to be sure the city is going all it can to protect its citizens from gun violence.

“Most of the gun violence in Burlington recently has been associated with drugs, but there are also issues around domestic violence and suicide, too. This debate is not about whether guns are legal or illegal, it’s one about gun violence,” said Kiss.

Vermont: A gun tradition While Vermont is ranked among the safest states in the country, anti-gun groups often give Vermont low ratings because it does not conform to their idea of stricter gun laws, such as requiring permits to carry a concealed weapon in public, and does not require background checks or other measures designed to restrict sales in any form.

For his part, Kiss believes that Vermont lawmakers should discuss whether to enact laws that would require waiting periods to purchase guns, require guns to be sold with child safety locks, as well as require guns to be locked away from children. He also thinks there may need to be a limit, per month, on the number of guns purchased by one person.

He also argues that Vermont lawmakers should discuss whether it should tighten up its laws around the sale of guns, and require background checks and waiting periods for all sales, not just those from licensed dealers, but also among private sales and gun shows. He doesn’t see that as an undo restriction to owning a gun, or deterring law-abiding citizens from buying guns, but it might deter people who buy them to sell for drugs, or to use for crimes.

“Why shouldn’t we enact these things? These are all based on responsible gun ownership and they have a real potential to improve public safety and we ought to at least seriously talk about them. I don’t have all the answers, but I think it’s good to have these discussions,” said Kiss.

However, the Vermont Federation of Sportsmen believes Kiss is buying into a false argument.

“For all this hoopla, I have to ask what’s it all about? We don’t have a problem here, and there is no empirical data that I can locate that we’re creating a problem in Boston or New York. It’s more political posturing than anything else,” said Evan Hughes of the Vermont Federation of Sportsmen. “If I had a crime problem and I didn’t want to deal with it myself I would try to blame someone else, too.”

About half of Vermonters own a gun.

Hughes said Kiss should not rely on conjecture from other mayors, but facts. “For him to continue doing this when the facts do not represent his position is irresponsible and inexcusable,” said Hughes. “He is smearing this great state.”

Illegal gun sales Federal officials say the most common illegal gun purchase in Vermont is the “straw purchase.” This is when someone buys a gun, knowing they are going to immediately turn over the gun to another person. In most cases, those guns are traded for drugs. The guns are then taken back to the drug dealer’s city of origin and either sold for an additional profit, or used in a crime.

According to one U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency official in Vermont, drug dealers who come to Vermont from Massachusetts or New York can often make money on both ends of their trip. In Vermont, they make money by selling the drugs they smuggled into the state, and then can make money back in their hometown by selling guns they may have bought up here cheaply, or traded for drugs.

“We’ve had a number of cases in which people have bought guns in Vermont legally and then taken them down to Massachusetts, Connecticut, or New York city and traded the guns for drugs; that’s very common, the number of cases in which convicted felons want them and do it for money and sometimes for drugs,” said David Kirby, an assistant U.S. Attorney in Burlington.

In one case, David Rowell, a New Hampshire man living in Newport, bought three guns for Daniel Powers of Brownington, a man who was providing him with heroin. One of those guns was later found in Springfield, MA, when Powers was picked up on charges of drug trafficking. Rowell received six months in prison; Powers received a 15-month jail term. Both will also be on probation for two years.

Other federal officials say guns can be bought relatively cheaply in Vermont and sold for a large profit in larger cities.

“A $200 to $300 weapon here is worth five times that in New York City or DC,” said Darren Gil of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF). Drug dealers use different people and send them to different dealers to not raise suspicions, he added.

“This happens everywhere across the country, it’s not something unique to Vermont,” said Gil of straw purchases. “I’ve seen this everywhere I have worked for the ATF.”

And, Gil added, it doesn’t seem to matter what type of gun laws a state has on the books.

While Vermont guns have shown up in Springfield, MA, Albany, NY, and Providence, RI, they are not as often found in Boston and New York.

In fact, a 2000 ATF report on gun trafficking in Boston shows that Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine are not the major sources of illegal guns. Instead, it is Alabama, Texas, Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida that are the main sources. Nearly half of the illegal guns used in crimes in Boston in 2000 came from Massachusetts.

“We have not heard of Vermont being a source state for us,” said Virginia Lam, deputy press secretary for Bloomberg. Instead, said Lam, the majority of guns coming into New York are from the so-called Iron Pipeline, or the I-95 corridor in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.

Instead, Lam said Bloomberg’s initiative is aimed largely at trying to get Washington to consider overturning federal laws enacted in the past six years that make it impossible for federal, state, and local law enforcement officials to share “trace data” about guns. This data can help to pinpoint previous owners, and potentially the gun dealers who sold the guns.

The issue is not about imposing New York laws on Vermont, said Lam, or with denying people the right to own guns.

“He [Bloomberg] has no quarrel with the Second Amendment,” said Lam. “He does not wish to restrict anyone from buying legal, licensed handgun or rifle and has never advocated to pass additional federal laws that would be viewed as being gun control.”

This January, Bloomberg hopes to bring as many of the 122 mayors together in Washington, said Lam, to build momentum to call on Congress to make some changes to federal law. And, she stressed, any legislation the coalition is focusing on right now is aimed at allowing ATF and local officials to share more information about the illegal guns used in crimes.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Government; US: Vermont
KEYWORDS: banglist

1 posted on 12/09/2006 9:33:27 AM PST by kiriath_jearim
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To: kiriath_jearim
Lets enact more laws to stop criminal activity.

Yeah yeah, thats the ticket.

2 posted on 12/09/2006 9:39:24 AM PST by mountn man (The pleasure you get from life, is equal to the attitude you put into it.)
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To: kiriath_jearim

But, I thought bad guns ONLY came from Georgia and the Carolinas!


3 posted on 12/09/2006 9:48:26 AM PST by Ruy Dias de Bivar (ISLAM "If you don’t know what you have to fear, you will not survive."---Hirsi Ali)
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To: Ruy Dias de Bivar
Last month Mayor Mumbles of Boston said it was NH
4 posted on 12/09/2006 9:53:57 AM PST by tiger-one (The night has a thousand eyes)
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To: kiriath_jearim

But-but-but I thought the whole political climate of Vermont was shifted to the New-World-Citizen viewpoint, and traffic in all kinds of sidearms and weapons had been outlawed, with the few that were grandfathered in so strictly monitored it was IMPOSSIBLE to even take one out of the gun safe without a signed authorization good only for 24 hours.

What is this "free trade in sidearms" business, anyway? Ben and Jerry's running a little trade on the side, maybe?


5 posted on 12/09/2006 9:56:42 AM PST by alloysteel (Facts do not cease to exist, just because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley)
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To: kiriath_jearim
While Vermont is ranked among the safest states in the country, anti-gun groups often give Vermont low ratings because it does not conform to their idea of stricter gun laws,

Which illustrates yet again that anti-gun groups couldn't care less about reducing crime, and that their hoplophobia combined with their socialist/authoritarian tendencies rule the day.

6 posted on 12/09/2006 9:57:50 AM PST by Mr. Mojo
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To: kiriath_jearim
"Burlington Mayor Bob Kiss, a Progressive"

How charming. Following in the footsteps of Bernie Sanders, I suppose.

7 posted on 12/09/2006 10:07:05 AM PST by Past Your Eyes (Do what you love and the ridicule will follow.)
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To: kiriath_jearim

We (NH) should sue the state of Massive2shitts for exporting the maggot snot slimebag types that shoot cops like Michael Briggs. They are the ones with the problem, not us. That is until they start sending it up the sewer that is I-93. Then it becomes our problem. Unless and until they get their own laundry cleaned, they can just STFU.


8 posted on 12/09/2006 10:11:26 AM PST by Past Your Eyes (Do what you love and the ridicule will follow.)
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To: mountn man
If people are buying guns in Vermont and then taking them to Massachusetts to be used in crimes, why don't they just ban guns in Massachusetts? Seems simple enough to me.

Oh, wait. Never mind.

9 posted on 12/09/2006 10:18:18 AM PST by boojumsnark (Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.)
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To: kiriath_jearim

When is the Northeast bunch going to figure out that they are up to their butts in barbarians, and start seriously civilizing them?


10 posted on 12/09/2006 10:20:32 AM PST by SWAMPSNIPER (BUAIDH NO BAS)
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To: SWAMPSNIPER

Gun Use For Dummies -

1. Good guys go to Vermont, buy good guns.
2. Good guys go home, shoot bad guys with good guns.

Problem solved.


11 posted on 12/09/2006 10:30:15 AM PST by gb63
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If I was a Vermont pol the first thing I'd ask complaining officials was whether or not their state had a 10-20-life sentencing program equivalent. Next, I'd ask them about their prosecution statistics for gun crimes. Gee, dear gun-grabber, spot a trend? That's right, set laws and practices punishing the criminal, not the law-abiding citizen.

Laws requiring things like mandatory child safety locks as part of a gun sale are really only feel good measures. If the buyer isn't smart enough to realize the need to purchase one, giving them a free one isn't likely enough to make them think to use it. If the argument is that poor buyers would not be able to afford a lock otherwise, I'd laugh in the speaker's face. No, the cost of the lock wouldn't be incorporated into the purchase price, would it be? But, I guess if it eliminates a reason a liberal judge would let off a negligent owner then I suppose it has some value although I don't like the slippery slope nature of such "benign" measures.

12 posted on 12/09/2006 10:31:27 AM PST by NonValueAdded (Prayers for our patriot brother, 68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub. Brian, we're all pulling for you!)
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To: kiriath_jearim
The storm clouds are gathering, folks. Prepare for AWB part 2 and more, coming to a Congress near you. Every incident where so much as a .22 LR round falls out of a pocket is going to be hysteria-whipped to build the public outcry, and Nancy Pelousy will be licking her chops to get more legislation passed. Get ready.

Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!

13 posted on 12/09/2006 10:38:42 AM PST by wku man (BLOAT: your life will depend on it in the not-too distant future.)
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To: boojumsnark
why don't they just ban guns in Massachusetts?

Then, if they can only ban murder........

14 posted on 12/09/2006 10:39:27 AM PST by Puppage (You may disagree with what I have to say, but I shall defend to your death my right to say it)
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To: wku man
The Bullets are coming...the Bullets are coming...,

15 posted on 12/09/2006 10:50:36 AM PST by gb63
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To: kiriath_jearim
The debate centers on this basic premise: Do Vermont’s lax gun laws contribute to crimes in other cities by encouraging illegal gun trafficking?

Vermont, where all these supposed crime causing guns are coming from, has a crime rate among the lowest in the nation.

Pretty much ruins their theory right there.

Why are these other New England cities being allowed to create criminals without consequences?

16 posted on 12/09/2006 10:52:52 AM PST by RJL
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To: kiriath_jearim
overturning federal laws enacted in the past six years that make it impossible for federal, state, and local law enforcement officials to share “trace data” about guns.

What laws are they talking about?

17 posted on 12/09/2006 11:26:12 AM PST by Hazcat (Live to party, work to afford it.)
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