WHY DOES VERMONT NEED UNIVERSAL BACKGROUND CHECKS?

 Currently in Vermont, felons, domestic abusers, and convicted drug dealers can buy guns from unlicensed sellers who are not required to conduct background checks. Without a background check, there is no way of knowing if a gun is being sold to a criminal or another dangerous person. Background checks should be required on all gun sales to help protect all the citizens of Vermont.

BACKGROUND CHECKS WORK

Gun trafficking, gun suicide, and gun murders associated with domestic violence are all less prevalent in the few states that already require background checks for all handgun sales. In states that require background checks on all handgun sales:

• Thirty-eight percent fewer women are shot to death by an intimate partner, even though the non-firearm homicide rates of women by their intimate partners are nearly identical.¹

• The firearm suicide rate is 49% lower, even though non-firearm suicide rates are nearly identical.²

• Gun trafficking is 48% lower.³

• Thirty-nine percent fewer law enforcement officers are shot to death with handguns.⁴

THE PROBLEM WITH DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND GUNS IN VERMONT

Violence against women in America is directly related to our weak gun laws. Women in the U.S. are killed at alarming rates by intimate partners, and firearms play a key role in turning domestic abuse into domestic homicide. Tragically, this is especially true in Vermont.

Convicted domestic violence offenders are not allowed to buy or possess guns under federal law. But they can avoid a background check by buying guns from unlicensed sellers—often at gun shows, auctions, or through anonymous online transactions—who are not required by federal law to conduct background checks on potential buyers.

• The presence of a gun in domestic violence situations increases the risk of homicide for women by 500%.⁵

• Between 1994-2012 in Vermont, more people were murdered with guns in domestic violence incidents than any other type of homicide.⁶

• Vermont has the highest rate of gun deaths (homicides, suicides, and accidents) in New England - twice that of Massachusetts.⁷

• 56% of Vermont’s domestic violence related homicides were committed with firearms and 80% of the suicides associated with the homicides & domestic violence are committed with firearms.⁸

THE PROBLEM WITH DRUGS AND GUN TRAFFICKING IN VERMONT

Vermont’s easy supply of guns is fueling the guns-for-drugs trade in the state by making it easy for convicted criminals to purchase firearms undetected. Law enforcement officials have described Vermont as a state “where you have drugs going in and guns coming out”.⁹

• Vermont has the highest rate of illicit drug use in the country (15% of respondents used in the last month).¹⁰

• From 2000-2012, Vermont experienced a 771% increase in treated heroin/opiate abuse and in 2013 heroin overdose deaths nearly doubled.¹¹

• Vermont has one of the highest rates of gun trafficking in the Northeast, with Vermont guns being recovered at out-of-state crime scenes at more than double the rate of other states in the region.¹²

• According the the Globe, authorities in Springfield, MA have recovered a dozen guns at crime scenes that they traced to Vermont, more than any other state outside Massachusetts.¹³

REAL STORIES FROM THE REGION

• In Dummerston, VT in 2011, Frank Caraballo, a drug dealer originally from Massachusetts, murdered Melissa Barratt (age 31) of Bellows Falls. The gun used in the murder was acquired by trading drugs for the gun.

• In March 2012, Jason Lee Morrill of Portland, ME purchased a 9mm Taurus handgun from a private seller who had advertised his gun in a classified periodical called Uncle Henry’s. Morrill was prohibited from purchasing the gun due to a previous felony conviction, but the private seller was not required to conduct a background check. Morrill immediately resold the gun, and two months later it was recovered from a crime scene in the Bronx where a suspect had exchanged fire with a New York City police officer.

POLLING: VERMONTERS STRONGLY SUPPORT BACKGROUND CHECKS

• 81% of Vermonters support requiring a criminal background check for every gun sale. (Lincoln Park Strategies Poll, April 26, 2014)

• 77% of gun owners in Vermont support requiring a criminal background check for every gun sale. (Lincoln Park Strategies Poll, April 26, 2014)

• A majority of democrats, republican, and independents alike would be more likely to support a candidate if they were in favor of requiring a criminal background check for every gun sale. (Lincoln Park Strategies Poll, April 26, 2014)