What makes Vermont so unique?

D

Doug.38PR

Moderator
What is it that makes Vermont, right in the heart of Left Wing Yankee New England, such a gun friendly state, indeed even more friendly than many Southern and Western states in regard to carrying and owning a gun?

You have ever other nostril speaking liberal (Kennedys) up their wetting their pants at the very mention of the word gun....then you have a single state in the middle of it all (a state that is far left and in line with the mainstream of that area in everything else) that goes against the grain not only of the region, but of most of the rest of the nation.

What is their secret?
 
Their Supreme Court heard a right-to-arms case in the early 1900's, and came down with a verdict that has effectively blocked any restrictions on the right for decades.

This illustrates why a Second Amendment case in the US Supreme Court case is so important.
 
This illustrates why a Second Amendment case in the US Supreme Court case is so important.
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ANY Second Amendment decision by the USSC will be important but may not be favorable for RKBA.
 
Yes, we need a test case, but any decisions the SCOTUS makes is only important if it AFFIRMS a right...not if it denies or infringes upon one.

So if it's the latter case, it's a bad ruling/law and should be ignored.

Civil disobedience (which the braver among us practice already).

-- John D.
 
It's not just Vermont - Maine and New Hampshire are pretty gun-friendly as well. It has to do with a culture of country living, with low crime rates and higher participation in hunting and shooting sports. It also has to do, I suspect, with the "Yankee Spirit" that dates from the Revolution. All three northern New England states have gun ownership rates that are significantly higher than the national average.
 
Article 16. [Right to bear arms; standing armies; military power subordinate to civil]

That the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the State--and as standing armies in time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; and that the military should be kept under strict subordination to and governed by the civil power
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mvpel is right, the Vermont Supreme Court did hear a case involving ones right to keep and bear arms in the early 1900's. I forget the case, but the judge sitting on the bench stated that the the people's right to keep and bear arms for defense of themselves means just that. He also said that no scrupulous and free man will ever be disarmed. Now if only the United States Supreme Court would rule that way, we'd be all set. I'm not going to hold my breath.

I was born and raised in Boston, so I know a thing or two about those "nostril speaking liberals." The Gun Owners Action League (GOAL), is hoping to put seven pieces of legislation through this year which will make Massachusetts a "shall issue" state again, and take the powers of licensing out of the hands of local police chiefs. With Deval Patrick as governor, I won't be holding my breath for that one either.
 
mvpel said:
New Hampshire even has a right of revolution recognized in its Constitution.
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Good point. Actually though, the federal Second Amendment is also about the very same thing, even though it isn't explicit. It's something that's apparent from the other writings of the Founders. The right of revolution is always there anyway, regardless of what any document says. The reason is simply that no one has a "right to rule." Legitimate government is only by consent of the governed.

Still, I doubt residents of New Hampshire or any other state would ever resist government in any way. Most gun owners probably didn't even have the minimal courage needed to ignore the AWB during the 1994-2004 period. While the Founders were willing to sacrifice their "lives, fortunes, and sacred honor" for freedom, most modern Americans wouldn't even give up their cable TV for those things. They consider themselves much too "reasonable" (a common excuse for cowardice) to do anything of the sort, even if the government suddenly "interpreted" the Constitution to allow for random body-cavity searches of our daughters and wives. Most Americans will put up with anything and everything as long as it's "the law." They have a slave mentality and prefer to be "on the good side" of those with power.

Anyway, I'm currently looking for a new job, and Vermont, NH, and Maine are all very high on my list. Vermont especially. It's very good to hear about their Supreme Court precedent -- I wasn't aware of that, and it makes me want to go there even more.
 
Unfortunately in the 70s people from NYC and Boston started to move into Vermont and things started to change .It is no longer the strongly conservative state it once was .
 
New Hampshire even has a right of revolution recognized in its Constitution.
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I believe that many State Constitutions declare this ... the Virginia BOR says that the majority of Virginians have a right to alter/abolish the government in Virginia.
 
I wouldn't get all "giddy" about Vermont. Let one of their citizens actually use a concealed weapon in a case of self-defense, and you'll see the "REAL" liberalism raise its ugly head.

Vermont is notorious for being easy on child molesters! They're really a bunch liberals, at heart.
 
They also, I think, were the first state to essentially recognize gay marriage (they call it civil unions, but it's basically the same thing under law)

This is all what makes it so strange, as liberal as they are with all the other New England states, they stand out like a sore thumb on gun rights.

Even if their is some court ruling or law that would seem to forbid any sort of gun control, that hasn't stopped leftists for the past 100 years.
 
Being progun and progay marriage is quite libertarian and a better world view than just having guns but being the sexual activity police - the world view of the authoritarian social conservative.

When the gun folks realize this, it will be all to the better. Constraining other freedoms and personal behaviors between consenting adults is a hard position to hold when you blather about unrestricted rights to own instruments of lethal force.
 
Where do I sign up?

Sounds like my kind of place - socially liberal, yet pro-gun - a good lot of true libertarians, not selective libertarians like the Democrat party, the ACLU, and bible-thumping, others'-business-nose-sticker-intoers, war-mongering "conservatives" (aka the Republican party).

Amen, Glenn M.

Yes of course it comes down to rural vs. city mainly.
 
Constraining other freedoms and personal behaviors between consenting adults is a hard position to hold when you blather about unrestricted rights to own instruments of lethal force.
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I don't see it as a hard position ... It makes no sense to me to say that if we don't like gun control then we must embrace homosexuality. That's just not our values around here. You reckon we ain't libertarian enough?
 
Speak for yourself before you say 'our values' or embrace this or that. It is the fallacy of the authoritarian to assume that if you want folks to live their lives without the intervention of the state that it means one embraces that. When you say 'our', you imply that the only true gun believer is also the authoritarian gun lover. That leads to supporting violations of other rights as long as you can keep your gun.

It is that kind of intrusional rhetoric that makes some of the gun world's blather about freedom ring so hollow.

I don't think the state has the right to mandate religions (although we see that put forward by some). However, my acceptance of your right to practice a religion doesn't mean I embrace your religion, which might think is crackpot baloney. However, I defend your right to practice.

Don't mean to hijack Doug's confusion of Vermont, gun rights and liberals but he is putting forward the same silliness. If you like guns, you must be a social conservative with a specific religious point of view, view on social policies, etc.

That is just not true. However, folks of that ilk have major hissy fits if such a concept is broached. In 'our' good ol' boy gun world, we demand social policy purity or you ain't a real gun nutso. Bah.
 
Yankee stubborness

I grew up in northern New York, very near the Vermont border. You could look out the window and see the Green Mtns. North of Saratoga, and south of Ticonderoga. We would go to the Rutland fair. And my grandfather was as Yankee as a Nantuckteer. Ayah.

They are fading now, fewer and fewer are left. Stubborn, independent, thrifty, and often frugal, they are the direct spiritual decendants of the people in the northern colonies who threw off English rule.

They know what really is, and isn't, and no amount of liberal rehetoric will change their minds. They are the country people.

Sadly, wealthy urban folks (with different values) have been buying out the old breed, offering irresistable amounts of money for old country farms.

Like in the west, where people are moving to Washington and Oregon to get away from California, and then they try to turn their new homes into what they left, the same is happening to Vermont and New Hampshire. For now they are decent places for gun owners, but there are people actively working to change that every day.
 
Being progun and progay marriage is quite libertarian and a better world view than just having guns but being the sexual activity police - the world view of the authoritarian social conservative.

When the gun folks realize this, it will be all to the better. Constraining other freedoms and personal behaviors between consenting adults is a hard position to hold when you blather about unrestricted rights to own instruments of lethal force.
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if I bothered having a signature this is what it would contain
 
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