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Maybe not in so many words. But the Lamoille Valley Fish and Game Club are making their displeasure with the city known and they’ve declared all members of the Burlington PD persona non grata. The casus belli: the Burlington city counsel’s attempt to enact a local “assault weapons” ban. “’We have members in Burlington as well as members of our club that are going to be passing through Burlington and this would directly affect them and we felt that a prejudicial vote like that was going to be non-supportive of our club and being non-supportive of our club makes it very difficult to support Burlington City,’ the club’s chairman Bob Boivin said.” According to foxnews.com, that’s gonna put a crimp in the BPD’s training regimen . . .

And the boys in blue aren’t happy about it.

In response, the Burlington Police Department released a statement saying: “It is unfortunate that this important and much-needed community dialogue regarding gun control currently under way in the City of Burlington and across the nation has resulted in this action.”

City council president Joan Shannon says the buck stops here in Montpelier and D.C.

“Ultimately, I don’t think that the best way to assert control over guns is at the local level,” conceded Joan Shannon, president of the Burlington City Council. “But here in Burlington, I think we felt the need to act because we didn’t see action coming from either the state level or the federal level.”

But the club doesn’t want to see Vermont — a constitutional carry state — become a patchwork of unmanageable local restrictions for gun owners to navigate. And the Burlington proposal would be the first step on that slippery slope.

“If you’re going to a shoot, say in one end of Vermont to the other, you have to check the laws for every town in between, and you will pass through a half a dozen different towns, and that makes it almost impossible for someone to stay as a legal gun owner, and that’s what we’re concerned about,” he said.

Perhaps a preemption law at the state level would be the best resolution for all involved. Just a thought.

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36 COMMENTS

  1. Why penalize the cops? They didn’t initiate the law. Ban all the city council members. If it’s a means to have the police put pressure on the council, ban all city government employees.

    • Because the cops will feel it. The politicians wont.

      “I’m just doing my job” is already too often accepted as an excuse.

      With no enforcement bad laws will die.

    • Any cop that if for ‘gun control’ is an unAmerican pig. You cant have an AR in your patrol car and a ‘regular capacity’ Glock on your hip and say to me that I cant have the same thing as a ‘peasant’ citizen.

    • From the linked article; “The group’s ban will affect how and when officers train in the state, where such facilities are limited.”

      The way I understand it, the police use their range(s?) for their training and now the city will have to spend money (or at least be marginally inconvenienced) finding another place to train.

  2. More Municipal PD’s need to speak up in support of gun rights and against more restricitions, this is a nudge to them to stop being bystanders. I am starting to see a rift between Municpal Police Chiefs who are appointed vs. County Sherriff’s who are elected by the people.

    • It sends the message to the city that they can provide at their cost( all taxpayers cost) a facility for local pd training or send them some where to get it. The club may or may not get compensated for allowing local pd to use their facilities. I know of clubs here in Texas who allow local small town PD’s that do not have facilities to use theirs for training and certifications as there is just not enough in the local budget to have a dedicated place for just the PD. The cost associated with maintaining the facility are on the club members maybe now the anti’s / city council will have to burden some of the costs or the local pd may not be as ready to protect them as they were when the local gunclub supported their training efforts.

    • In addition to what neo297 said above, many gun clubs also give discounted or free memberships to law enforcement officers, along with exempting them from membership caps.

      In areas where the waiting list can be years to get into a private gun club — I had to wait 10 years to get into one — revoking those privileged membeships and making LEOs from anti-gun jurisdictions get in line like the rest of us peasants would send a strong message.

    • It may not hurt for clubs to be a little proactive either.
      Simply state that if a local municipality or law
      enforcement either support or don’t oppose anti-2A
      legislation (particularly those not based in truth or
      reality) that they will be cut off. You could also put
      in that LE members at the individual level will also
      be thrown out. While this may not seem fair, it
      would point out that individual LEOs have the right
      and need to speak out against moronic dept policies.

  3. From the statement from the PD it looks like they realize how wrong their local city is being, but they are hoping the city counsel will back off from it’s stupidity.
    Unfortunately I don’t see the cojones from the local PD to say as much.

      • “In response, the Burlington Police Department released a statement saying: “It is unfortunate that this important and much-needed community dialogue regarding gun control currently under way in the City of Burlington and across the nation has resulted in this action.” ”

        Translation: “it is unfortunate that the proles won’t shut up and do as they’re told.”

  4. Interesting that a unilateral action by the City Council to ban the guns is a “much-needed community dialog” while a response by the gun club is “unfortunate”.

    However, the Burlington police can console themselves by noting that no matter how incompetent they become from lack of practice, they’ll still be better than New York’s Finest.

  5. Like gun companies if BIG City cops want to be fascist and take rights away we wont arm or let them train at all. BIG City cops are antigun idiots who are not good cops at all at work.

  6. This is becoming a pissing contest among gun grabbers at lower levels of authority. Who can be the most unconstitutional, who can twist laws to “get” gun owners, who can figure out a way to price guns out of the hands of those who need them most, lower income people living in dangerous places (Can you hear me Chicago?). Can’t get the guns? Go after the ammunition. What is also being exposed is the behind the closed doors cooperation among seemingly unconnected players, who’s goal is the illegal disarmament of the civilian population. Verges on conspiracy.

  7. I’m growing very weary of this trope that “we need to have a ‘dialogue’ about guns in this country.”

    We’ve had that conversation… in detail. Over the timeframe from about 1975 to 2008, we’ve heard all the same codswallop we’re hearing now. Again, and again, and again, and again, and again…

    The pro-gun people won the argument.

  8. Vermont is a microcosm of the red vs. blue state dichotomy. Take any large Vermont city (scale it down please…it is Vermont) and it is fervently anti-gun although they have relatively no gun crime in the state. Take Burlington, Montpelier and to a degree Bennington and Brattleboro out of the picture, and the state is ardently pro-2A. Outside of those “major” cities, every household has a deer rifle and a 12 gauge shotgun, or more.

    Sadly, much of the politics have changed because of immigrants from NY, MA, CT and NJ, hoping to live the New England lifestyle, have also brought their liberal predilections.

    The red citizens, aka old timers, hate it.

  9. The ridiculous part is that according to the state constitution only the state government can pass firearm laws. The burlington city council can ban everything under the sun and it means absolutely nothing.

  10. 24 V.S.A. § 2295. Authority of Municipal and County Governments to Regulate Firearms, Ammunition, Hunting, Fishing and Trapping

    Except as otherwise provided by law, no town, city or incorporated village, by ordinance, resolution or other enactment, shall directly regulate hunting, fishing and trapping or the possession, ownership, transportation, transfer, sale, purchase, carrying, licensing or registration of traps, firearms, ammunition or components of firearms or ammunition. This section shall not limit the powers conferred upon a town, city or incorporated village under section 2291(8) of this title. The provisions of this section shall supersede any inconsistent provisions of a municipal charter.(Added 1987, No. 178 (Adj. Sess.), eff. May 9, 1988.)

    Umm, last sentence needs a correction VT already has state preemption. The fact that it is ignored does not mean it is invalid – Marbury v, Madison 5 U.S. 137

    • § 2291. Enumeration of powers

      (8) To regulate or prohibit the use or discharge, but not possession of, firearms within the municipality or specified portions thereof, provided that an ordinance adopted under this subdivision shall be consistent with section 2295 of this title and shall not prohibit, reduce, or limit discharge at any existing sport shooting range, as that term is defined in 10 V.S.A. § 5227.

  11. Having lived in VT. this does not surprise me one bit. What does surprise me is this hasn’t been tried before. Oh wait yes it was. The city of Barre tried this, and was taken to court. The city LOST! Burlington is a bastion for the supporters of Sanders and his ilk. Outside of Burlington, Mountpeculiar, et al is a different story. Those who have moved to VT. from those other states are there to support the communist-socialist life style. Notice I said life-style, as opposed to way of life. For the most part they are over educated in a doctrine that they don’t want for themselves, but are willing to force on to those who can’t fight against it.

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