The history of Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys has some odd turns, but the result was Vermont. It is a state that exists because of a militia that just banned militias.
Related: Slippery Meet Slope: Vermont Dems Pass Yet Another Gun-Grabbin’ Bill
Vermont on Monday made it a crime to own or operate paramilitary training camps in the state after Republican Gov. Phil Scott signed legislation introduced in response to a firearms training facility built without permits that neighbors called a menace.
Violators face up to five years in prison or a fine up to $50,000 or both, according to the law. It prohibits a person from teaching, training, or demonstrating to anyone else the use, application, or making of a firearm, explosive, or incendiary device capable of causing injury or death that will be used in or in furtherance of a civil disorder. It also bans a person from assembling with others for such training, instruction or practice.
According to the report, the law does not prohibit,
- Legitimate law enforcement activity
- Lawful activity … where military science is taught.
- Self-defense instruction or practice without the intent of causing a civil disorder.
- Firearms instruction is intended to teach the safe handling and use of firearms.
- Lawful sports or activities like hunting, target shooting, and firearms collection.
In other words, Vermont Democrats have created an incrementalist loophole in the law for redefining legal activity regarding firearms training.
To be clear, we accept that there are or may be individuals or groups who gather and train to do what Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys did beginning in 1770. A “militia organized to defend the property rights of local residents…”
They are also credited with stopping,
“… sheriffs from enforcing New York laws and terrorized settlers who had New York grants, burning buildings, stealing cattle, and administering occasional floggings with birch rods.
We are not condoning civil war or paramilitary interventions, but you can’t escape the irony. Given the current decline in rights, New York has clearly won control over the “land grants,” and modern Vermont Democrats mean to ensure things stay that way (politically), no matter how despotic their designs on power.
Make no mistake. This law will develop a case of mission creep in successive legislatures as progressive gun grabbers in Montpellier find new and exciting definitions for “legal activity” and “civil disorder.”
You can count on it.
And one more bit of irony. If ever the state has a need to contain or suppress an alleged militia, they can call on the Vermont Air National Guard for support – nicknamed ‘The Green Mountain Boys.’
