Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Hi. Welcome to the House of Judiciary Committee. Again, we're back. And we're gonna not necessarily even though we have a bill h five seven one, which that's a short form bill, which was a vehicle for recommendations from the Firearms Surrender Order Compliance Working Group. This is something that they're working on in the Senate, either on eight six zero six or s three two nine, and we may be seeing it, a language that does the actual language that implements those recommendations. And I have made pass out the actual report from that group. And I just wanna do kind of an introduction to give us some background for when we do look at the language. And I thought that we'd have Carolyn Well,

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: there's more or less a walkthrough at this point.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: It's not really a walkthrough. It's a discussion of what the needs were and just what the mean, we passed this last year in miscellaneous bill to have this rule And it's just kind of an update on what they recommended. We'll look at the language after the Senate has After it's settled somewhat, hopefully in the Senate. So Carol, if

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: you could join us, thank you for being here. Of course. Thank

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: you for having me. Bring us kind

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: of to start the process of understanding this, hopefully we'll get to look at some language possibly next week, depending on how far the Senate has got over.

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: Great. Well, I'm Carolyn Hansen from the attorney general's office. And as the chair was just saying, you all appointed a working group to look at the issue of compliance with firearm surrender orders. So just to kind of set the stage for you, right now, we definitely have situations where courts order people not to have firearms. And that's basically it. Don't have a firearm. Nobody asks what you do with a firearm. Nobody knows where the firearm is. And so this work group was formed by you all. And I can give you a chat number I open up to my

[Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: notes yet to just sign up to the cloud.

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: Okay. Another suggestion. Interesting. So this was act sixty four and twenty twenty five, and you all appointed certain people to be part of this group. I'm gonna tell you who was on it, so you know. In addition to myself, we had Judge Zone A, who was representing the court. We had a Defender General designee who was Marshall Paul from their office. We had a state's attorney designee, Kim McManus, a member appointed by the Vermont Network, which is Sarah Robinson. The state police, which was started out as Lieutenant Colonel Windham, but he was kind of retiring. So Major Peterson stepped in, and they worked on this together. A police chief, Sean Burke, who was fantastic. A federal firearms licensee, Henry Perro, who owns Perro's gun shop in Waterbury. The Center for Crime Victim Services, we had Megan Kenlock, who is the grants manager. And then from the Council on Domestic Violence, have Heather, who's the co director. So we had a pretty good team of people who are stakeholders in this process and who understand the issues, the problems and the issues. We also had a whole list of consultants, and we reached out to those consultants, to participate as much as they wished to do so. So you authorized us to meet six times, and we started meeting in July right after the work group was formed. And we met through November. So basically, a time to meet five times. We still could meet one more if we need to, And we might, hopefully, if this passes. And in the course of those meetings, we also had a special meeting that we invited all of the, consultants to come and to say whatever they want to say. We also invited comments. And we did have, for instance, someone from the Fish and Wildlife who listened in, didn't really give comments. We had the Sportsman Club both give us written comments and also come and orally present ideas and always were invited to listen in to all of Yes. These Yes. Chris Bradley came, and he prepared some written comments, which were circulated to the whole group and discussed by us. Chris also participated by some questions and introducing some ideas at the meeting that all the consultants were at. And of course, they were all invited to all of these meetings. So I tell you all that because I want you to know that we put a lot of work into this. And so I want you to know that this is not just a proposal from my office. This is a vetted proposal with lots of different people's input. And the reason why we were working on this is because and let me just look to my thing. Because we were really focused on the goal of prohibited people limiting their access to firearms they're not supposed to have. So one thing I want to be really clear about is, unlike all this other stuff that I saw in the firearms bill that the Senate's been working on, where there's new things going on about firearms. This is nothing new. There is no new firearm restrictions coming out of this group. So I think that's really important to be clear about it because it's quite different. It's really about the process. And the process, I'll tell you right now, it wasn't working. It wasn't working at all. We had FFLs who could be storage facilities. And we've gotten to the point, and I I'm happy to talk more about this with you all. And also, I'd suggest you have Henry Perro, and he was our representative, if you're interested in hearing from him. But they gotten to the point where they didn't they didn't really wanna participate because this wasn't working for them. And there are a couple of big issues for them. One is liability. So when this was first looked at, there was a provision that law enforcement would not have any liability. And so long as they're not like manhandling, not using the exact right words, but as long as they're being careful and following the procedures, they couldn't be sued. There was no similar provision for an FFL. The other thing was the original statute required that if the person just never came back and left their firearms there, that wherever they left them, whatever storage facility they were supposed to, if they sold the guns, then they were supposed to find this person they've had no contact with and didn't know who they were and return any extra proceeds to them. So that's all it's work. Who's going to take on a firearm in that basis? It just didn't work for anyone. So I tell you all that because it's really important that we move forward on this because what we have right now, it's not working for anybody. And the program itself, this federal firearms, licensee, the partnership there, you know, I can't tell you how many more people are gonna come back on board, but I can tell you that we tried to listen really carefully to what their concerns were and to make sure they were incorporated in the recommendations we were making to you, because they provide a safe storage option. So I want to start by explaining that when you look at this, there's kind of three things that can go on with a firearm. The biggest pot is law enforcement holding the firearms. That is generally the best option because law enforcement, they're serving the order. So when they go and they serve the order, if it contains a firearm surrender, some of the temporary orders in fact, I don't know how many don't require it. And unfortunately, we can't really find out those numbers because the judiciary doesn't track it. So I can't tell you. I wish I've asked for it. But it's not required at the temporary order stage. But in situations where the judge finds that it is necessary, the judge can order it then, and the law enforcement officer is going to that person to serve the order. That's kind of the best time and the safest time to secure the firearm. If it doesn't happen, it's a temporary order. It becomes part of the final order. And the firearm could be at an FFL after that. It could be with law enforcement. Right now, law enforcement doesn't charge. I don't know of any agencies that are actually charging a bullet gun. FFL's for business owners, they're going to charge something. And you all spent an awful lot of time looking at what you thought would be an appropriate charge. In fact, I was brand new to this job when you all first passed that law. And I remember sitting through, it was like a whole day of hearings, and it was all about what they should be able to charge. So a lot of these other really important issues, like the liability, the other things, kind of got swallowed by a lot of stuff that ultimately down the road made no difference. Nobody's complaining about the fees that you know, that's not the issue. But there's also a provision in our statute that a third party, if it doesn't place the victim at greater risk, can hold the firearm. And the problem with the statute is that it said that, but it never explained what the process was. Well, the judge can't figure out whether or not that is risky thing to do unless they can hear from the third party. So there was no provision set up to explain how that should work. So that's what we're trying to clean up here, is to make it clear that the third party, if they're gonna be holding the firearm, needs to understand and be before the court and understand their obligations. Because we it's a I'll be frank with you. It is a it is a less safe option. It's a much less safe option. It's not like a firearm that's with an FFL or a firearm that's with the police. We have had many situations in Vermont where people gave the gun to their brother, and then they asked for it back and told them the order was dropped or told them, you know, give me my gun back or I mean, I hit you over the head. I mean, who knows what they're going to say. And while there could be some liability in that person for giving it back, nobody was going through the process of making sure that that person actually understood what they were agreeing to. So some of what we've laid out here is making sure that that process is followed. And I'm not really following the order of my notes here, so I'm probably going to forget some stuff. But just stop me if you have a question. So I've heard some testimony from some of the other people about this third party, and they're saying, Well, I don't think this work group looked enough at the third party because, you know, third parties right now in Vermont, they can they can hold on to a firearm in some situations, like, in an emergency or something like that. And that's true. That has to do with a criminal statute. That has to do with background checks. But why it's important with a third party in this situation is it's an entirely different situation. It is a situation where the court is involved and is approving that third party. So we don't wanna put our judges in a position where they are being asked to approve a third party. And and some people seem to think that judges just can go on a computer and look and see everything about everybody. They can't see anything about anybody. They might know some things about the defendant if it's a criminal case and the and the defendant is in front of them. They're not gonna know anything about this third party other than what the parties present to them. So it's important that the judge have the information they need to make a good decision. It's important that the judge have a background check. If the court is being asked to sign off on that and decide that that is a reasonable option. It's a less safe option. I'm not going to mince words about that. It is a less safe option all around. But if the court is going to do that, they need some assurance that this person that you're giving a gun to is an unaffordated person. And they they don't have any way of knowing that. They also need to know that that person understands their obligations. That that person, if they have questions, like, the order still in effect? Like, how do we go about finding that out? And that we already have liability in our law and under federal law. If you give a gun to someone who's prohibited, you you can get in trouble yourself. And it's really important that people before they take on something like this, they understand that. Go ahead.

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: There is no real provision, though, if it's from family member to family member. You don't need to have a background check or anything even to do firearms. There's no transfer or anything like that.

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: Well, you would need to if you were coming in as a family member saying to the court that you wanted to hold the gun for a prohibited person.

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: Right. To hold it, but I mean, to give it to them. I mean, could just give him everything I have for my son and say, Here, these are yours, without any type of

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: Yeah, you're talking about transferring ownership.

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: Ownership. And I don't need to do an FFL form forty four seventy three or anything to do that. And and so I'm like, at some point, you're not you're only gonna make this so safe. I don't think there's a magic bullet because, first of all, how do you know you got all the guns? Parts of the body.

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: Yeah. Well, you're right. There's nothing we are ever gonna be able to do that can make people 100% safe that are in these very unsafe situations. But we can do a lot better than what we're doing right now. And when you transfer that gun to a family member, if you're transferring full ownership and you don't own it anymore, that already says in here, this doesn't impact selling a gun. This only impacts if you want your son to hold the gun and you are someone that the court has found has a relief from abuse or against you because they found that you abused someone and that I

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: I I I I I'm familiar with the part. Okay. But but I'm like, I still own it, but I can't possess it. So can I give it to somebody? Can I have somebody hold on to it? It'd be the same thing with my car when I'm drunk on the street. I can't have my car or my keys. The cops are gonna take off my keys, or I can give my car to someone else. It's the same liability there for

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: the Yeah. Me. I think I understand what you're saying. And if you have somebody who is willing to come in and act as a third party for you and the court approves it, they could hold them. They could hold But the court would have to go through this process to make sure that they weren't inadvertently putting a blessing on somebody who's a prohibited person, for instance Mhmm. Holding the firearm. Does that does that make sense?

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: That makes sense.

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: Okay. And it's only applying again

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: I didn't hear it that way, but originally. But that that's total sense. Third party, I think, is probably one of the best ways to get through this.

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: It's actually

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: I know it's not I know it's not I know it's not tough, but Yeah. There's no place to hold them. There are places that are willing to take them, but I also think a big part of the problem is between the temporary order and the final order. If when they get the final order, that is when they determine the firearms need to be surrendered, going and getting them

[Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: is gonna

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: be a potentially larger problem, more of a safety office for law enforcement than for if it was during the temporary order.

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: Yeah. Because they know it's coming. Yes,

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: I'm that's coming to get your guns, and it's not gonna be a good situation.

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: Well, they are, in most instances, not going to come there. On they don't have an order to serve at that point. The final order takes effect if the person is in court, the final order takes effect right then. There's no paperwork that they're then going out and serving.

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: But they still may be in conventional firearm theft?

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: Yes, they may be. And so it is on the defendant to figure out how to get that firearm either to the police department The

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: defendant has to comply? The defendant. The

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: defendant either has to get it to a police department where they can store it, or the defendant has to get it to an FFL. And that could be having a friend take their firearms to them.

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: So I mean, follow-up to ensure that it's happened.

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: Well, that's part of this too, is that they need to let the court and or law enforcement know, it creates an acknowledgment forms, that they are letting them know what they did with the firearms.

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: Well, we're actually asking the problem, to be honest.

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: We're doing what? The person,

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: the problem, to actually be honest with this, that they can correct that.

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: Right.

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: I think that's dangerous.

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: Well, why why do you think that's why do you think that's dangerous?

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: What would be the option? Keep five more.

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: Well, okay. You you could do that. You would be

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: Or let somebody else hold on to

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: the appointment without anybody

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: else knowing.

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: Yeah. But under current law, the only way somebody else can hold on to them is if they are an approved

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: third Right. What I'm saying is you're not gonna know about

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: That's possibly true. That's possibly true. But that's not a reason to not try to have some steps in place so that we know. For instance, let's say there's five court hearings that day. Four of the people file the acknowledgement form, and we know where those firearms are, and the victim knows where those firearms are. It's a lot easier for police or investigators to deal with that one person where they didn't file the form and we don't have any idea what's going on. It's a lot easier to focus some resources around that than it is to have no obligation at all on the defendant to tell us what they did with their firearms. Oh, no. I'm not Okay.

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: They they are telling you. They're just not being honest.

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: Okay. Yeah. No. I I I agree. Lots of

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: people a terribly dangerous situation.

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: As opposed to what?

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: It's it's not a good situation either way. No matter how there there's there's no way to enforce this 100%. And feel comfortable about it, which here's a false sense of security, I think, to victims and survivors.

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: Well, I can hear what you're saying. But I think sometimes perfect gets in the way of good. And so we could be doing a lot better than what we're doing right now. I mean, you could say that we are giving people a false sense of security if we order them not to have fire in the federal government and then we do nothing about it. I mean, that is a greater false sense of security than if we try to take some steps to ensure that it's actually done. You're right. We can't make sure that it's actually done, but we can get closer than we are now. That's what we're trying to do.

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: Have we had

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: any violation of restraining orders or not having a firearm after the

[Barbara Rachelson (Member)]: order? Yes.

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: You know how many?

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: No. No.

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: I just know because I've seen it from the work from before. People do everything they can to they'll comply as much as they have to, but not necessarily completely.

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: Yeah. I understand that. Absolutely.

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: A lot.

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: I know it worries me too. I completely agree with you. But all we can do is try to inch forward and make things a little bit better than what they are. I mean, this is what other states have decided that some steps towards compliance are better than no steps. And right now, we're at a no step situation. You know what I'm saying?

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: We can

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: wrap that around a lot better.

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: I mean, the the common goal here is to make sure that we are limiting access to firearms by prohibited people. We're not interested in impacting anybody else's gun rights. This doesn't have any impact on anybody else's gun rights. Prohibited people. And they're people who have caused harm or have a danger of future harm to themselves or to others. So, okay, I got a little sidetracked there.

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: Sorry.

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: Not your fault, my fault. I wanna just mention a few other of the recommendations that are in here. I mentioned that the third party, if there is a third party, again, less safe option, but we made a decision a long time ago that we were gonna allow that if it was something that the court approved. And so that's the compromise Vermont settled on. But we're making sure that a hearing is held to ensure that that person understands what they're getting into, and that they're appropriate person, and that they have to have a background check. Another big change, one thing we heard from industry people was there's no reason to have ammunition as part of this because ammunition is hard to store. People may have a lot of it. It is hazardous waste, believe it or not, for the state police. If they have to dispose of it, that's not good. And you can buy it. It's not regulated in the same way as firearms. You can buy it at a hardware store or something. So we've removed all of the references to having these storage facilities fold ammunition. We talked a little bit about the acknowledgment form. And if folks have questions about that, it's a really important piece. And it's designed to help help people comply with the law, help people understand, like, where the where the firearms being kept. And for folks who don't comply with that, it gives law enforcement a better idea of who they need to perhaps go out and have a conversation with. And it will also allow, and this is a very important piece of this, victim notification. Right now, you go through this process, which can be a very difficult decision for someone to make to go and ask for relief from abuse order. You've probably heard that before. And if they weigh that calculation and they decide that this is an important part for them feeling more safe, And then the court orders that the defendant not have any firearms. Victims right now, they're not notified. They might be calling the court. They might be calling the police departments. They're just trying to find out where where are the guns and what happened to the guns. Yeah. Takes a step towards requiring notification. If people are notified in court, then the law enforcement doesn't need to do it. But if they're not notified in court, both of the firearms being collected and also where they can't collect any. So like the situation you raised where the victim knows they have them, the defendant says, I don't have any, and the police collect none. It's really important for the victim to know that because then they factor that into their safety planning as well. FFLs right now, they can't well, under this new setup we have here, FFLs can't be asked to store a firearm that is a temporary order. The reason for that is because we've all decided that FFLs can't charge. No one can charge for holding a firearm when it's only a temporary order. And so we wanted to make sure that FFLs weren't put in the position of holding a gun for somebody and then not getting paid. But that doesn't mean that the defendants foreclose from using them. The defendant can store their guns with an FFL right away, even in a temporary stage, as long as they understand and agree to pay the fees that are incurred during that time. We heard from industry that they wanted to change the three days that's currently in the statute to seventy two hours after a background check is complete. That's really because they felt that there was a conflict between federal and state law there and that state law might be requiring them to give the gun back before federal law would allow them to. So we're just making it consistent and very clear that it's seventy two hours after the person passes a background check. I already mentioned immunity. So now FFLs would have the same type of immunity that law enforcement has if they are participating in this program and they're following the rules. That's not to say they can willy nilly do anything they want. They have to be following the rules. It also provides immunity if they end up selling the firearms because the defendant never comes. And that's another thing we heard about, because you probably know that one of the FFLs who participated in this program for a little while, got sued. And a couple of things happened there. They didn't have any immunity for selling that firearm, which if they had been following all of the guidelines here, they would have immunity. And also, there was poor communication because there was nothing set up designed to make sure defendant knows that their guns are now with an FFL. FFLs are going to charge. So we're making sure that defendants are given that information. We're also making sure that the FFL knows who's holding the gun for, that they know how to contact that person so that in the event they don't come and claim it, they know how to reach who to reach out to. It also requires law enforcement to assist FFLs if they have a question like, is this order still good? You know, this person came in and told me this order is no longer in effect. Law enforcement can verify that very easily for an FFL. So it creates more framework around this partnership. It's not all the work that needs to be done. That's another reason why this is so important. Because until we get these pieces ironed out, we can't start to work on a law enforcement protocol. How the victim notification is going to work? We have a lot of pieces around that we need to work on. But what we need first is the approval from you all of this is the right path to be moving forward. We want victim notification of firearms either being collected, not being collected, and also when the order expires, that the person knows that their firearms are are going back to the person they had an order against, and they can make decisions based on based on that.

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: I'm toffing around the sorry. The thing about they can't be forced to give up the firearm on the temporary order or store it. The storage can't take it.

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: The FFL can't be required. But the defendant can store it with the FFL.

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: Right. But what if they don't want to? That's, I think, can somebody push that issue and where would it go? Like, I can't afford to give it to whatever right now, I don't want to. Well- They could be arrested for failure to comply with the restraining order, I'm assuming.

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: If they're not complying with the order, yes, that becomes a criminal offense. If this does allow law enforcement who doesn't have storage capacity, that's another thing that, needed to be changed because law enforcement, small departments, some of them don't have the ability to store guns. So you're right. In some situations where a law enforcement agency collected a firearm and they didn't have the ability to store it, they would need to hold on till to the final order. But then they could, with notice to the defendant about what their obligations would be, they could transfer it to the FFL that they had a relationship with. The defendant at that point is gonna have all the information they need, either to know what those fees are. And the safe safest option would be for them, if they don't have any money, to borrow money from that trusted family member to pay the storage fee for six months. But if they don't go that route and the family member is willing to take this on and come into court and say to the judge, I understand what I am agreeing to do. They can be approved by the court and the guns can be transferred to that family member.

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: Was there any sort of provision in there for when the police did go to get the firearms or search for firearms only just to ensure They can't. Them off. No. Mean, is there any kind

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: You know that.

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: Yeah. Well, I know.

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: But, I mean, is there any attempt even, or if they just gotta comply? You have to trust them to comply. I mean, we could also Well ask for

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: Law enforcement have been trained to ask about firearms. Believe it or not, that wasn't always part of their training. When they go and serve an order and the order says, like, this person can't have firearms, some of the officers that they hadn't been trained that they should ask, that they should highlight that to the defendant. Who says that you can't have firearms and that it gives an officer an idea of maybe what firearms they have because and again, I'm backing up a little bit. Of

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: the They're looking first for consent. Consent. The funds.

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: Yeah. Yeah. They might get consent. They they also might by asking, they might clue the defendant to this is something they need to do, and they'd be in violation of the order if they kept it. And if you roll this all the way back to when we started working on this, the forms themselves didn't even ask the victim if they had concerns about firearms. So lots of improvements have been made to both get victims who might be there just thinking like, I need a place to stay tonight. This just happened to me. They're not even thinking about the incident that happened the week before when they were threatened with a firearm at that point. This gets them to think about that so the judge can know about that and make a decision around that. And also, makes sure that police officers, when they go to the homes, they know, okay, the defendant is supposed to have these three firearms that the victim knows about. I'm gonna ask about those. And you're right that they can't necessarily go in and search. But in the event that the defendant doesn't turn over the firearms and they have specific information that the firearms are still in the defendant's possession, they can go and apply for a search warrant, and it becomes a criminal case. And there have been at least one instance that I know of of a police department doing that and successfully recovering the firearms. But it's not a a relief from abuse order is not an authorization to go into anyone's house.

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: Ian, you have a question?

[Ian Goodnow (Member)]: I don't want to interrupt.

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: No, please do. I'm talking too

[Ian Goodnow (Member)]: No, no, it's really helpful. My question is going to go take us a little bit on a tangent. But it relates to on page four of this, the first bullet on suggestions for a model protocol, which is a legal removal of firearms that's significant domestic violence, isn't it?

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: Let me just stop you for a minute because I don't know what we're looking at. Oh, am I looking at? Which one are we looking at? 329? The report. Looking at the report. Oh, the report. Okay, sorry.

[Ian Goodnow (Member)]: On page four, the report was legal removal of firearms at scenes of a domestic violence sensitive.

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: Okay, page four. The first bullet. Legal removal of firearms at scene of yes.

[Ian Goodnow (Member)]: So this brought to mind something I'm curious if it came up in the working group, which is, I would imagine, in many RFAs, there is a companion criminal case where there's domestic violence incident. The individual is charged with domestic violence. The victim also applies for an RFA. In the criminal matter, meaning they could have a condition of release for prohibition of owning a firearm. And I know in my county, we have a DV packet that is filled out by the victim, which assesses legality risks. One of the legality risk check marks is, does the offender, the person who did this to you, do they own any firearms? And that's a box that they check, yes or no. And when I see that DV packet and I see that lethality risk checked, that's the first thing I do is ask for condition 13 to keep the defendant from having firearms during the pending criminal matter, the domestic violence charge. And so there are many ways where maybe they get a temporary RFA, but then they don't proceed to the final. They never ask for an RFA. They just have this condition of release. Did it come up at all? Is there a way that we can pull in individuals who are prohibited on the criminal charge from owning a firearm to access ways to give up their firearms while they have that condition. I don't know if they're considered appropriate for persons when they have that condition, but sort of see it as don't know, a gap where you could have somebody who is prohibited from having a firearm, it's not actually because of the RFA, but it's arising from the same moment. I don't know if that makes sense.

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: No, it does make sense, And we did not focus on that because there is a prosecutor involved in that piece, and the prosecutor has the ability to reach out to police, and especially where they have a concern and they're hearing that the person has the firearm. The same types of storage places could be used. And that order would qualify as an order that allows an FFL to hold the firearm for them. That, to the extent that that's helpful, a protection order can be defined pretty broadly under federal law. So if they walked into an FFL and said, My sister's going to come in here and bring my firearms. I'm not allowed to have them anymore. And could participate in the program that way.

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: And

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: I'm glad you asked me that because one thing I wanted to mention is something I haven't actually had a chance to mention in the Senate. And that's that this program, the storage program that's kind of on life support right now, it's being used in other ways besides just where there's a court order. It's being used by people who want to voluntarily store guns. And if you're interested in hearing more about that, one of the people we consulted with was Doctor. Bell, and she can talk about harm reduction and how she's used this list. And I should back up and explain in case you don't know this, that part of the work that we did with the state police was creating an interactive map. So any FFL who wants to participate in this, they're on a map that people can they don't have to go into a police station and ask about this. If they want to go to an FFL, a really good reason for having a map like this is, let's say it's a concern and they don't really want everybody in their community to know their business, that their child is having issues and they just don't want the firearm in the house, they can see another county's FFL. They could go there and store the firearm there. And so Doctor. Bell, if you have her in, she could tell you some great stories about the ways that she's used this map with training physicians to talk about how important it is to remove they call it off-site removal of the firearm and to use a place like an FFL and how critical it is to figure out a way to partner with them so that people can use this. And they can use it like if they're going out of town for six months and they know that they have firearms that somebody might break in their house and steal. They're going off to college and they can't take their firearms. They can store it. But it's a really important program that we want to partner well with, and it's going to have far reaching implications in harm reduction if we get it right. So I just wanted to mention that. I mean, Doctor. Bell, she could tell you such great stories. She told me a story about an FFL in the southern part of the state where there was an elderly gentleman who was The family was very concerned about him, he didn't want to give over his firearms. The NFL owner actually came to his house, talked to him, was able to convince him to let him take the guns. And so it is a really it is a good partnership. It can be better. And I think part of the ways it gets better is if we make this program work well for them. And I'm sorry that got a little far beyond what you No, no.

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: That's what you know.

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: Well, I'm completely lost in my notes here. There anything you guys want to talk about? Any questions you have? I'm not sure I've covered it all, but

[Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: So when a firearm is relinquished, does it have to go to law enforcement or an FFL? Or could somebody that's not an FFL start?

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: It needs to go to law enforcement or an FFL initially because we have to have that step in there where if somebody who was not an actual storage facility, just like a trusted friend or a family member, that's permitted under our law. But we have to have a situation where that person is vetted, because we can't just have somebody saying a defendant saying which as you point out, many people, not just defendants, lots of people, one of my favorite police chiefs says, People lie to us all the time, all the time. So they'll like, say, you know, firearms are at my brother's. We have to have a way that we can make sure that the brother has the guns, that the brother is eligible to have guns, and that the brother is willing to do this.

[Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: You want to start storing guns to to as an equal.

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: Well What's

[Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: going through my mind is would they have to be approved for every case, or could they be approved once?

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: I don't know the answer to that. And I also don't know if legally they I don't know what that would what ATF would look at that as. I mean, if you are in the business of transferring firearms, there's rules that apply to you if you if you're running a business doing that.

[Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: So But there is the ability for somebody to be approved that's not an FFL.

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. And, generally, that would be a a trusted friend or a family member. Well, it it it could be you if you wanted to do it. But the other thing, and this is this is something that has come up with people who who are this is a question that has been asked is, well, what happens if the court appoints a third party and then the defendant never comes back to that third party? Don't we need some rules around when they when they can sell the gun? Well, you know what? That's on the defendant. If you if you pick somebody who is not very trust worthy, there is nothing really to stop that person from walking into an FFL and selling your guns the next day. Because if they have a driver's license and they are you know, nobody's anytime somebody's selling a gun to an FFL, they're not asking you to come in with a receipt of sale showing you're the, like, legal owner of it. I mean, that's just it's not as great of an option. Not a great option safety wise, but it's also there aren't a lot of things that we can do around that. If I give you my lawnmower and you have my lawnmower and then you decide to sell it on front porch form or something, I have a civil action that I could probably pursue against you if I can prove that I owned the lawnmower and you were just borrowing it or something. But the government doesn't get involved in saying, Well, once you've had a lawnmower for thirty days, then you can sell it to other people. We don't create rules around that. That's sort of

[Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: I know that FFLs aren't real crazy about doing this. And just

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: going through my mind, what if

[Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: no FFLs in Southern Vermont wanna do it? But there's a citizen that wants that is willing to start a business have a secure facility and start the story.

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: I'm not saying that they couldn't. I don't know. I think they would have to find out if they're going to be accepting payment for that and running a business that involves holding firearms. I think that's up to them to figure out if they can legally do that, if that puts them under ATF in some way.

[Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: And it shouldn't have been the

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: bill. No, no. Because we're not trying to create. It's really important to think about what we're trying to do with this. We're trying to limit prohibited people's access to firearms. Putting the firearm with a third party is a possibility if it's safe, But we're not trying to create some big broad category where we have people for hire that are coming out and being a third party. Like I said, it'd be much better if the defendant can't pay the storage fees if they borrowed the money from their trusted friend or family member to pay that, then if they're

[Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: Is there no other

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: Well, there's there's always police. Police are the biggest option, and then FFLs are another option. It doesn't have to be in your same county. And then if if for whatever reason the defendant doesn't want to go either of those routes, they can propose a third party to the court and ask the court to approve it. But if that's as far as we get involved in it, because the court's focus is whether or not that person, that third party, is going to limit the defendant's access to the firearm. Beyond that, who owns it, how long they hold it, whether they that's not that's a bunch of stuff that can be handled civilly and has nothing to do. The only time we're trying to create a system for that is when we're requiring the defendant to give their gun either to a police department or an FFL, somebody they don't have a relationship with. And as you said, maybe don't have a choice. We wanna make sure that there is a process, a very clear process about when that party sell the firearm if they if they don't get their payment of their storage fees or if the defendant just disappears. We have an interest in that because we're requiring that. We're never requiring some individual to come forward and say, oh, I'll act as, you know, Joe Smo's third party because I see it as a way of making income. Maybe they can do it. I don't know. But but that's not really that's not really in the in the scope of this. Right. Does that make sense to you?

[Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: Yes and no. What you said makes perfect sense to me, but it it it doesn't make sense to me, I guess, in a in a way not to have that option. Well I mean, to be determined if if They

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: have they have the option.

[Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: Police still are are at capacity, say, for what they can store and there's no FF battles, then maybe it's something that will have to be looked at.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I guess my question is, how hard is it to become an FFL? Because I know there are a lot of FFLs and folks that don't even have them. Like some of the gun groups, have them, and people have supplied them to come in FFL.

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: I think there are people who can better answer that, like ATF, because they regulate those places. And I bet Henry Perra might be able to give you some insight on when the rules apply. Go ahead.

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: It's not regulated by the federal government for you holding on to somebody else's firearms. Right. Modest for bond law keeps you from being able to transfer a firearm to another citizen. You don't have to do an FFL for a private sale in a state unless you have a state law.

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: We're not talking about sales though with this.

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: No, I know we're not. I'm talking about transfer.

[Ian Goodnow (Member)]: So can we just walk through Tom's hypothetical?

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: So, Yeah,

[Ian Goodnow (Member)]: you've got somebody inside of Vermont, Brattleboro, and he's decided that he wants to make a business out of holding guns for people who are prohibited for a period of time. They're not an FFL. So, if I understand how this would work, the person who's got the RFA or potentially has a condition that can't have a gun, go to the judge and the judge is like, Okay, so do you your gun to go to the police? Do you want your gun to go to an FFL? Or do you have some proposed third party? And they would say, I

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: have this proposed third party.

[Ian Goodnow (Member)]: He does this. And the judge would put him on the stand, the third party guy put him on the stand, talk to him, come under oath, Hey, are you going to keep this gun, not give it back to this person? What's your plan? How do you store it? All that stuff. Judge would weigh the testimony from the individual, like, Is he credible? All those things, And then make a determination whether that person can take the gun. Is that kind

[Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: of how that would work?

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: Yeah. But again, this third party thing, the way it was envisioned originally was really for people who had like a friend or a family member. And the idea was they didn't want to put it within FFL because they didn't want to pay a storage fee. So if you start talking about somebody going into business, what I don't want to say to you all, because I don't know the answers to it, is that if you started creating a business of being a holder of firearms, I don't know whether you would then become regulated by ATF. As far as if if the person provides a reasonable alternative to these places and and and is going to keep the gun in a safe way, then I don't think the judge would have a reason to say no to it. But I can't tell you that this business itself is even I mean, I don't know if it would And I don't know what would be the purpose for it. Because when you all first set this up, the whole reason you created a third party exception was just so that somebody could have, if they had someone, a trusted friend or family member to come and to hold the firearm instead of putting it in an FFL. I mean, FFL's already exist. What I've been told by FFL's is they have plenty of storage, that it's not a matter of they don't have any storage. Participating in this program. They wanna know that certain things about it are gonna work for them, but it's not that they run

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: out of storage. Necessarily have special place for those firearms. For what kind of firearms?

[Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: For the I mean I mean, not even all FFLs have guns for sale. Some some people just like to collect guns, and it's easier for them to be an FFL, that type of thing. But not not all stores have a place ready to store these guns. They're probably gonna have to build something.

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: Yeah. Yeah. And they don't have to do that unless they wanna do that. We have places who have storage already that's that's not being used. And the ones that are listed on the the interactive map are ones that actually do have storage. So you're right. There are lots of kind of like mom and pop places that you can maybe buy a gun from, but they don't have an actual storefront. They don't have places that they could store your firearm. And we're in no way trying to make them store firearms or anything like that.

[Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: I bought a firearm from a friend that's in SFL, and he doesn't have a store. I just went to his house, and we did it in his kitchen.

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: Mhmm. Yeah.

[Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: So they got delivered to him and

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: transferred to him.

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: But he doesn't have to participate in this.

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: He doesn't to. Like you said, if there's somebody out there that wants to create a business, maybe he decides this is a business. I'm not saying that that wouldn't be allowed. It's just that it doesn't exist right now. So all of it's very hypothetical about

[Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, mean, another thing that's gone through my mind, that somebody who did that is gonna be safer with them than it is a family member.

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: Possibly. Yeah. I understand

[Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: the third party thing and why we did it. Yeah. And that type of thing, we needed another option. Yeah. This should kinda be like that third option kinda, maybe. So can be one, but

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: I have a couple so or a couple segments. First of all, anybody that tries to open out a new business will be bankrupt because there won't be enough business, number one. Number two, trying to get a permit for it will be almost impossible. If you wanna build a new building, good luck. We're trying to get an act two fifty permit for them.

[Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: So So we're on that. It is the act two fifty visits.

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: The other

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: and the other thing is is back in my days as a select board member, and you say, oh, we're we're just gonna take it for the police department. Really? K. Police department goes and holds it. What happens if if the gun gets damaged or they say it's damaged or stuff like that? Who's responsible?

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: Well, as long as the police are exercising reasonable care, they're already, right now, under the law that we have, the one that's not working well, they're already exempt.

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: Right. So we all know they're gonna handle it with care. We all know accidents happen. So that's not gonna fly what we're doing. So I'm obviously I'm dead set against this. So but trying to keep an open mind.

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: I think

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: we've heard testimony, even from Anthony, that the FFLs do not have storage for this. I think anybody that's doing this on the side, like what representative Burditt just said, as soon as people get wind that there's a lot of firearms in there, that's opening them up to the the people that we're trying to get keep firearms away from the most are gonna have more crimes created there and more guns being stolen. And the other thing I just wanna add going on to this of what I said about storaging FFLs, I believe it was Henry, point blank, said, and some other said, trying to get a serial number put on guns was gonna be almost impossible because, first of all, there's nobody to do it, if I'm not mistaken, and second of all, the possibility of damage to the firearm to begin with. So, I'm just gonna lay it out there. It's just another way that a certain party in the nation wants to go and get more guns under their control and take away the rights of the second amendment. So that's my spiel. John, did you have questions? I thought it was very diplomatic It how I put

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: was beautiful. I'm

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: curious, what's the return process like when they, if they're with an FFL and you get them back or the family member, there's some sort of Yeah. Process?

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: Yeah. Yeah. And it does it does talk about that, and it's also part of the recommendations as there's already a process right now where, you know, you have to provide some paperwork that shows that you're able to have your gun back. And as long as you are no longer prohibited, which once the temporary order or the final order run and there's no other order in place and you haven't been otherwise convicted, what happens is that whoever's holding it will do a background check on you to make sure that you can have your gun back. They'll make sure that Because they can't They're you gonna run it

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: next, basically, Yeah, to get

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: were like purchasing a gun. They have to make sure that they because an FFL or a law agency can't give you a gun if you are a prohibited person. We don't want them to do that. So you could be prohibited for other reasons. You could have gone to another state and gotten in trouble. So they have to do that check. And then they have to make sure that whatever was the disability that was keeping you from having your firearm, like if it was a relief from abuse order or an ERPO, that that had run, and they can check that. And if the FFL is not sure, law enforcement can check for them. And then they can get their It's seventy two hours.

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: A third party situation.

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: If it's a third party situation, that third party has signed a agreement with the court that they would not give you access to your firearm while you were prohibited. So it's on that person to figure out if their brother comes to them and says, Oh, that order is not in effect anymore. If I were that person and I knew that I had that legal obligation, I wouldn't just rely on somebody's word. But that's really on them. They've signed a contract, basically, with the court saying that they are going to hold the firearm until that person is eligible to hold it again. So they can give it back. Easily check-in with the court, or they can check-in with the police department, ask the police department to verify whether or not the order actually has expired. And if it has, they can give the gun.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Oh, yeah. Go ahead.

[Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: And just for the record, when I

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: was going off on my thing, people that shouldn't have a gun, I just wanna be very clear, should not have a gun. Those need to be dealt with. But the rest of the stuff is not near as easy as people think to go and do unless you wanna confiscate guns from law abiding citizens. Thank you.

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: Was there any conversation ever about some firearms wouldn't be able to go to a third party, and some FFLs are not able to accept these types of firearms?

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: Was that ever brought up? You mean illegal guns that people are supposed to have at all?

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: No, highly permanent firearms.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Highly what?

[Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Permitted. Like a machine gun, something that's oppressors?

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: That would be a situation where the FFL or the police department would know and check with ATF to find out how that needed to be held.

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: It can go actually undetected. By itself, it could, but

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: I know ATF has rules around that and who can hold it and how you get permitted to hold an older machine gun and all those kinds of things. So we didn't have any special rules around that.

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: All

[Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: right, perfect.

[Barbara Rachelson (Member)]: So I'd like to say, I know we're not looking at this law now, we're looking at how to improve implementation. And I'm very grateful for the comprehensive team that, not just like your past, but the work that your office and you did to come up with this really detailed plan to improve the current situation. And I think we have to really keep that in mind that we already passed the law, and now we're looking at how to implement it better. And again, a lot of people, as you said, put a lot of thought and time into this, and it's important we honor that because we don't want to just kind of shoot from the hip in terms of changing some of the recommendations that were not either were vetted already by your committee and undermine the purpose of setting up these committees.

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: When was that law implemented?

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: Let me see. I can tell you. 2013. Are you talking about the the first original firearm storage bill? Because that's what I that's what I thought you

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: were asking. I don't think that's what representative Rachelson was referring to.

[Barbara Rachelson (Member)]: Act 64, I think, is the piece.

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: Oh, the the what this group? Yes. That was sorry. I I didn't I thought you're talking about the original It's fine. '20 BSA 2,307 that started originally in 2013. But this study group was appointed by you all in 2025.

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: We did last year. Yeah. Sorry? Yeah, last year, right?

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: Last year. Yes, last year. And so we were asked by you all to look at this issue and to provide you with these recommendations. And just as representative Rachelson mentioned, that we operated in consensus. Everybody vetted us. We had three hour conversations about everything that's in front of you. Every one of those meetings, we met for three hours, we discussed all of these things and had some really knowledgeable people in the room thinking through, like, what to recommend to you. So I did want you to know that they were consensus recommendations and that we did spend a lot of time trying to do what you asked us to do. And I hope I appreciate the comments, and I hope you find it helpful. If you have other questions, I'm happy to answer. Do you

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: want to

[Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: have audio concerns? I'm not done yet.

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: Oh, I didn't try it. So

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: I appreciate all that. And and I believe when most of this started, because I've been here for eight years, but I believe at one time when a lot of this gun legislation really, really has really been pushed was when the supermajority was in control. And since then, it's been backed down quite a bit because of the threat of a veto. So I'm sure everybody is trying to make, including myself, trying to keep bad people that have guns, get them away from them. I think better enforcement of laws and holding people more accountable would do a lot of that. That's my opinion.

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: I agree with you. I think accountability is really, really important. And I'm happy to hear you say that you feel like we can all agree that the purpose of this is to try to keep prohibited people from having access to firearms. So where you and I might part ways is that I don't think it's enough. Accountability isn't enough that we can punish somebody if they take a firearm and use it in a way we've never intended them to use it to harm their children or their partner and to kill someone at that point, having accountability, being able to put them in jail, it doesn't bring that person back. So what this is trying to do is to take some steps so that we're not only holding people accountable, meaning when they break the law that we do something about that, but we're also trying to prevent them, save them for themselves, you know? And you look at that case that just happened in Louisiana. You probably have read a little bit about that. It's a family violence case where there were numerous indicators that the defendant was suicidal. He said in front of his mother, If you leave me, I'm going to kill you. I'm going to kill all the kids. And Louisiana is, believe it or not, ahead of us in having a lot more steps around compliance. What didn't happen in that case was nobody had gotten an order. And so a lot of this is whether you then act on the information you get, whether the family could have thought about when they knew, the family knew that this this individual was suicidal, whether to either voluntarily remove their firearms, if they were willing to agree to that, or to pursue an ERPO, which we have in this state too. Or the wife could have gone and potentially gotten a relief for abuse order because that's a really dangerous time, as I know you all already know, when somebody is leaving their partner. That person said she was gonna divorce him, very dangerous time, but she may not have been able to make the decision to get a protective order. But I mentioned that because those are the people you should have in mind when you're thinking about this.

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: Which clearly I do not to interrupt you, but that's pretty obvious. It's common sense. And obviously mental health didn't do their job, nor was there any accountability. The guy had the threats out there. He did all this stuff, and nothing was done. So then it's blamed on the gun. It's not the gun that pulls the trigger. Yeah. It's the guy that anybody that blows their family away or anybody, quite frankly, that kills an innocent person more than likely has something that has gone a little strange or something like that. In a lot of cases, there's warning signs and everything. The guy down there that you just referenced, plenty of warning signs, but nobody acted on us. Had, like, telling right close to our two parents that we knew mental health. What did we do? Nothing. I tell her it's too late. But again, it's the gun.

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: Well, you and I agree on this. I don't think it's the gun, but I do think that a lot of times what happens in those situations is folks do reach out for mental health treatment, but the other step is removing access to lethal means. And that step needs to go hand in hand. When you're getting the mental health counseling, it's not enough to have the person in counseling. I believe I read that the fellow in Louisiana had taken some steps, the family was trying to help get him into counseling. But the other thing we have to be thinking about is access to lethal means. And what can we do for folks in those situations that will help to reduce that risk? And you talked about it, lethality assessment. When police ask about whether this person ever threatened you with a firearm, we can look at accountability. We can look at, you know, is there a criminal charge? But we also have to be thinking about how do we limit that person from having access to a gun, especially in the situations I'm talking to you all about today. They're already prohibited. I'm not even talking about somebody who's just made a threat. I'm talking about people that the court has already gone through due process. The court has already held a hearing. The court has decided that this person is not legally able to possess a firearm, and that's the population we're focused on. We're not focused on everybody else that owns firearms out there or the guns. We're focused on the population of people who are already prohibited from having them.

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: Gotcha. And I don't wanna disagree with you all day because we could disagree all day.

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: I don't think we're disagreeing. I don't know if we've agreed on all that.

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: But the thing is, you know, there's it's no difference than those automobiles that I can see right there that can be used as a weapon, including the electric ones on the other side, right, that go the wrong way on highways and kill innocent people that we have a mental health person that wasn't dealt with and killed some people that I happen to be in the memorial business for. So if somebody wants to do something, I think there's a set of scissors right behind me, there's probably some things on this desk right here that people wanna do something. I worry more about explosives. We never talk about explosives. My daughter was almost killed at the Boston Marathon there with the brothers there with the pressure cookers. We should probably outlaw those two. So I'm got it. I see what you're saying.

[Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: All right, so I was just curious. No, Tom was first. Really quick,

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: was anybody on the panel, did they leave the feeling everything was cared for? Did anybody have any open or even sort of?

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: No, everybody's got all consensus. I mean, we would talk about a recommendation and then floor was open. So everybody on board, there's any further discussion, anything more that you want to say? There wasn't anybody saying, don't agree, I don't want that. And then us just saying, well, we're doing it anyway. So, we thought it through. Are compromises built in here. And like I said, this is just a first step. I mean, there's a lot more work to be done. That model law enforcement protocol is gonna be really important. And there are some issues that need to be resolved. But we're trying to just bring you the things that we know that you can fix. We know you can't do it all. There's still a lot of work to be done. Go ahead.

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: Thank you.

[Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: We worked on red flag laws a few years ago. Yeah. I think we worked on a couple of them. And I know I I'm pretty sure I supported some and didn't support some. But one thing that we did do, no matter if I supported, you know, the whatever we did back then or not, is we said we have to take firearms away from people who shouldn't have them. I don't think anybody has a problem with that. What we didn't do, we didn't set up a system for storage. And that's the way I look at this, this is simply storage. Is it perfect? No. Tom brought up some issues where somebody might not give up all their firearms. I brought up the issues, maybe we're not going to have enough people doing it. But we just need the safe storage. A lot of times I try to keep things simple and that's the way I look at it. This is for safe storage of firearms, plain and simple. It's a system that people in the industry, people in law enforcement, people in law came to a consensus to do. And overall, I I don't have a problem with it. It's not it's not restricting any second amendment rights. You know, if if second amendment rights were were restricted or or gone against, we did that a few years ago, potentially. And we obviously I'm gonna say we obviously didn't because they haven't been challenged and red flag laws or everywhere. So overall, I don't I don't have a problem. And and, you know, and maybe in the future if, you know, that there is an issue where people aren't giving up, you know, the firearms the way they should, you know, the way they're ordered by the court because there's an issue with them, you know, maybe we have to come back in here and and do something else to tweak the law in some way get them to give up, you know, the rest of the firearms or maybe we have to come back and give a fourth party an opportunity maybe to store firearms. Yeah, I don't even look at this as a rob. I look at it as our failure to do our job a few years ago as far as expanding on the lie, I guess you could say, because, like I said, we we said you have to relinquish them, but they don't know what the heck you're gonna do with them or where they're gonna go and and this stuff.

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: Well, thank you for saying that. And I I I hope you don't feel like I neglected on the ERPOs, but No. No. I think it's just important for people to know that, like, to date, the court's only getting 30 to 40 of those a year. They're getting a lot more relief from abuse orders. That may very well change because some of it is, like you said, the laws are pretty new. But this procedure to make it simple covers the same thing. So the IRPA law, this also suggests that you amend the IRPA law to simply say, refer to this firearm storage statute for the process. So we don't have different processes going on. We have one process that can be used to secure firearms for both types of protection orders.

[Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: And this tweaks a lot from what we did a few years ago. And like I said, maybe we ought to come back next year, five years down the road, make it again.

[Carolyn Hansen (Attorney General’s Office)]: Thank you.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Exactly what happens.

[Barbara Rachelson (Member)]: Sam, I'm sorry, I know we don't want to end, but I just again, Ken, want to point out and remind us all that when we talk about mental health people, I think I know what you were trying to say were people that were struggling with mental illness, and that frankly, the data shows that people who struggle with mental illness are most likely to be the victims and not the perpetrators. And I know we have gotten feedback from a lot of our advocates when we say these things, and nobody reminds us about that. So I wanted to go back.

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: I appreciate that. Can I respond? Yeah.

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: Go ahead.

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: So her feedback people and my feedback people are two different things. We just had another shooting in in South Burlington. I wondered what that's about. You know, we talk about all this unfairness stuff and all this stuff. Look who's doing it. It's the drugs. It's this. It's that. It's all that stuff. And, again, we are not going and holding people accountable and keep getting the people off the streets that need to be. And then I listened to overcrowding of prisons, which maybe we need to be build bigger prisons because maybe the state will be safer. And maybe if we stop the people coming in the state that are bad, that are running the drugs and the sex and all this stuff, I hear I see a hedge being shaken, but that's fine. But it's the way it is. So I said I was done talking. I'm done talking because all I'm gonna do is get more frustrated. So I've accomplished just nothing.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So we don't have Ken any more frustrated. We're going to adjourn until Tuesday. I don't think we have anything else on the calendar that's coming Cool.

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: Think so. What day is

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: it today? Friday. Today's Thursday. So we don't have anything on our agenda for the month. Oh, we don't? Okay.

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: I'm start recommitting stuff to you.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I'm sorry. I can

[Thomas Oliver (Member)]: I I can

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: look for something if we mean, you know, we so could we could be after the what is it?