Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Chair Committee this Thursday afternoon, January eight. And we're going to hear from Maddie Connery. Did I pronounce that right? Yes. A student at Brown University who's going to talk a little bit about how happened. But I'm going turn it over for further introductions to Angela.

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member)]: Thank you so much. So yeah, Maddie, Madeline reached out to all of us. I think everyone got the email, eventually, a bit about her experience at Brown a few weeks ago, one of the latest school shootings in our country. Man from Shelburne, attended Champaign Valley Union High School, which is in my district, and also connected with Ella, who is here. We both wanted to just talk with Marian a little bit more and really appreciate the chair offering this or agreeing after I offered this time to just share her story. As a Vermonter, we've talked about how special it is that people were such a small state and legislature and that our constituents can reach out to us directly, share something that's happened to them, and then have a chance to come in and talk to us. And so since Maddie is still home for a few more days on break, winter break, we thought it would be just a good opportunity to hear from someone with really recent lived experience, knowing that we haven't yet taken up any gun violence prevention legislation, but it's on the horizon for us. Now he's not here to testify on a bill, per se. And I just think it's always a great opportunity to hear from people with this type of experience. With that

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yeah, thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you very much. So if you could introduce yourself for the record and proceed with your test book. So lightning We'll just go ahead put that.

[Madeline (Maddie) Connery]: It's okay. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I was joking earlier, like, think it's funny that all I had to do is send an email and now I'm here to testify in the House Judiciary Committee. So wonderful opportunity. My name is Madeline Connery. I'm 20 years old and a lifelong constituent of Shelburne, Vermont. And I'm also a junior at Brown University. Today, I am here to urge this committee to advance proposed gun legislation coming before you this session, such as the omnibus gun violence prevention bill, as well as push forward house bill three nine three eight one, which would ban the sale of semiautomatic assault rifles in the state of Vermont, which is still live from last session. But I come here today not just as a constituent, but because like more and more Americans and Vermonters alike, gun violence has affected my life personally. On December 13, a gunman entered a classroom in a building where two of my roommates were studying for their finals. He took out a nine millimeter handgun adorned with a high capacity magazine and fired into a class of my peers. My roommate, a 21 year old engineering student from Houston, Texas, texted me at 4PM, saying that he just heard what sounded like gunshots. And he and over 100 others ran for their lives out of the building. In the span of minutes, my world kind of fell apart. It's now kind of permanently marked by a before and an after. I locked the doors, I turned off the lights, I turned on the police radio to the lowest volume, and I just hid under my desk for six hours. Eventually, my phone died. I had no way of contacting anybody or knowing what happened because all of my chargers were in my common room in my suite, was unlocked, and I was so afraid to go out there. I just didn't have contact with the outside world. Eventually, I went under my bed, and I just hid there till the night was over. In retrospect, I was safe, but it did not feel that way. The place that I loved more than anywhere else in the world where I've come to know some of the most intelligent, motivated and inspiring people was stripped away in seconds by a man with a vendetta and a murder weapon that was designed to maximize lethality. But I don't want to talk about that man today because I don't think that we should give him any credit or recognition. Today, I wanna talk about that weapon and the circumstances that cultivated that allowed him to commit this crime so easily. In the past thirty years, at least 717,000,000 high capacity magazines have been produced and distributed throughout The US. That is twice the population of America. Although Vermont has taken important steps to limit high capacity magazines, such as banning their sale, I do think existing law still leaves dangerous blind spots that allow for the sale of similarly designed rapid fire weapons, such as semiautomatic rifles, auto sears, and block switches. The omnibus gun violence prevention bill would address clear gaps in Vermont law by prohibiting machine guns at the state level, banning devices that increase a firearms trigger rate, establishing gun industry accountability laws, and importantly, strengthening firearm surrender procedures in domestic violence cases. Additionally, House Bill three eighty one, which would ban the sale and distribution of assault rifles in the state of Vermont, is a key piece of legislation that I would like to see passed in this upcoming legislative session. Had the previous ban on assault rifles remained in effect from 2005 to 2019, it's estimated that it would have prevented approximately 30 mass shootings. And there associated three hundred and thirty nine deaths, one thousand one hundred and thirty nine injuries. A 100 more hundreds of more people would be alive today, essentially, if this law had remained in place. And let me remind you that these are not just statistics. These are human lives with families and who even knows how many more people were affected by proxy. And let me be clear that I know mass violence is a monster that cannot be killed with a few state laws, but I do think bit by bit, the judiciary committee of Vermont has the power and the duty to advance tighter gun control measures that can and will save Vermonters' lives. Despite the clear legal and public safety rationale for these measures, there remains a persistent belief that Vermont is somehow immune to gun violence of this type. Two weeks ago, wrote an op ed for the Vermont Digger, urging action on this cause and sharing my own story. Yet I got so many responses saying, Oh, Vermont doesn't have this problem, or Oh, we don't need to worry about this. But let me just say, I grew up in Vermont's public school system, and I've been rehearsing lockdown drills since kindergarten. In a in a state where we are consistently falling behind on education metrics, why are we taking important time out of the school day to teach children how to hide if there is no danger? Talk to educators, talk to parents, talk to administrators and faculty, and they will tell you that the danger is real and the danger is palpable. Are we really going to wait until tragedy strikes to take initiative? I wanted to take a moment to say that gun bans do work. Look at Australia, which has already unanimously passed tighter gun control measures in the weeks that followed. They have already launched a new gun buyback program that is expected to remove hundreds of thousands of deadly weapons from circulation. Bondi Beach was the first mass shooting that they have seen in thirty years. Brown University was the four hundred and seventh mass shooting in 2025. The difference I see is a country that is run with the interest of the people and not the interest of a gun lobby. In his rambling audio transcript that was released a few days ago, the mass murderer mentioned that he would like to thank America for this opportunity. He said he had no love and no hatred towards this country, but that he would simply like to thank it. Let me remind you that nowhere else in the world can a suicidal narcissist so easily obtain a high caliber rifle and carry out a mass murder in broad daylight like this. But again, I don't want to sit here and talk about him because two lives were lost, two students who I never had the pleasure to know, but whom so many did know and loved. Their ambitions to incite change and to help others cannot be fulfilled. But I ask in the wake of their death that you mourn them as you would your own family. Because how many more children, how many more cousins and nieces and nephews and constituents will have to die until it affects you personally? And let me tell you that it will, because I have never once in my life thought that this would affect me, But here I am today. On behalf of my generation, the lockdown generation, the Sandy Hook, the Uvalde, the Columbine, and the Santa Fe generation, I just want to ask that you end this cycle of thoughts, prayers, and inaction, and that you pass the omnibus bill, the assault weapon ban, and so many more, because I do believe that Vermont has the power to act where congress has failed. Your thoughts and prayers won't stop bullets, but laws can. Thank you.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Thank you very much. You very much. So, yes, we have over the last few years I've been here gone from essentially no laws related to firearms to a number of them. And really, the approach, the philosophy that I've mostly had, though there's been some exceptions, as far as addressing high lethality weapons. The ban of high capacity magazines, the likely ban of trigger devices that turn firearms into essentially machine guns. But most of my focus has been to try to get firearms out of the hands of people who are going to do harm. So I think our most important law that we passed in this time is our red flag law, our extreme risk protection order law. And we've also strengthened our relief from abuse order law to make sure that firearms are taken out of domestic violence situations, which is a high cause of lethality in that situation. And I'll tell you this year, we're not gonna get to that ban for a couple reasons. We're not going to take that up. I just want to be straight with you on that. The assault weapons ban. On the trigger device we are. I think the most important thing we can do right now, given the fact that we don't have a nationwide ban of the firearms and New Hampshire doesn't have a ban, is that we have to make the laws we have now work better than they do. So we had a task force look at our relinquishment laws this past year, and they come back with recommendations so that we can make our red flag law work better. We also need to get the word out, and I'm working with the medical society to make sure doctors understand that they have this opportunity to get firearms out of the hands of people who will do harm with them. So those are kind of my focuses initially. The other reason I'm really not looking at a ban of assault weapons, even though we have some bills on the wall, is I am anticipating that we're going to be seeing the Supreme Court rule on that. And I think there's a good chance that it will unfortunately find those kinds of bans unconstitutional. I mean, I'm hoping I'm wrong. And to focus on something that may in the next couple of years be found unconstitutional as opposed to really focusing on getting the firearms out of the hands of people who will do harm. That also means trying to improve our medical treatment and those kinds of things. So I just want to give you kind of where I'm coming from because I think that was very powerful, what you said for us. And we're going to keep on looking at these laws and we're going to keep on advancing where we think we can do the most, have the most impact. But I really appreciate your testimony today.

[Madeline (Maddie) Connery]: Thank you. Thank you. And I do appreciate all the efforts that the Judiciary Committee has pushed forward in recent years and the strategic ways that you have done so.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Thank you. Anything else?