Another year of loose gun laws and another year as one of the safest states in the country. And no, correlation does not imply causation, but this has been happening yearly for a very long time. One analysis or the other inevitably arrives at the same conclusion. New Hampshire is a very safe place to live. This time around, it is US News and World Report. They ranked New Hampshire first and Maine Second. Conspicuously absent from that list is Vermont. The Green Mountain State used to be in the top three (with Maine and New Hampshire). Three constitutional carry states with liberty-minded gun laws, all with the lowest overall crime.
It was enough to make gun-grabbing proglodyes apoplectic. You could hear the twigs snapping for miles around. How can this be? It’s a fair question, and loose gun laws can’t be the only factor, but when compared to places with heavy-handed restrictions and high crime, it sort of sells itself. And if you’ve been following the stories about Vermont, you’ll know that it has been sliding down the slippery slope of progressive policy mistakes from defunding police to sanctuary cities to stricter gun laws.
Correlation does not imply causation, but in the latest US news survey, Vermont ranked eighth for violent crime and 18th for property crime. We predicted this, but it is not satisfying to be proven correct. This truth comes with actual harm and lives ruined or ended. We expect this trend will continue as Democrats follow the same path of decline as many a Democrat-run city or state. A road Granite State Dems would place us on in a half a fetal heartbeat given the opportunity.
New Hampshire voters are the only hope we have to prevent that, while Vermont voters will need to embrace a change in direction to mitigate their slide. There is some small sliver of light. In the same survey on crime and corrections, Vermont came in third behind New Hampshire and Maine.