For the sake of argument, let’s agree that people inclined to ignore the law will. Let us also consider that if you want to shoot someone or a bunch of them, the best possible locations are ones where you know you’ll have a significant force advantage. It, therefore, follows that any act of government that creates opportunities for criminals to have a force advantage is a deliberate move to create victims.
That might be a stretch. More likely, gun-grabbers, knowing they can’t outright ban firearms, will create as many spaces as possible where they are not permitted to make it difficult for law-abiding citizens to just carry a firearm for their own self-defense.
Burlington, Vermont’s crime capital, can’t ban them, but it wants to, so the city has proposed an ordinance that would prohibit firearms in bars.
The Burlington City Council Monday, November 18 voted unanimously to have the question of a gun ban in bars go to the voters. The Council cites a decade-old affirmative vote by the citizenry in 2014 as a reason this must go forward.
“Now, therefore, be it resolved that the City Council approves the proposed Charter amendment,” the resolution states. It continues, “… which was previously placed before the voters in 2014, and requests that the Mayor warn the question therein and place it on the ballot for the Annual City Meeting to be held on March 4, 2025.”
The whole resolution can be downloaded from the meeting’s agenda.
If voters approve restricting firearms in bars to criminals, the legislature will have to approve it. Municipalities are only empowered to enforce such restrictions with a nod from the State House and its assmbly. I don’t know whether a majority vote is sufficient. Democrats have a majority but not a supermajority. The 2024 elections robbed them of that in both chambers.
To be clear, firearms and alcohol do not mix well. Still, I am not aware of any evidence that banning them in bars has any effect other than to create another public place where you can’t carry, which deprives law-abiding gun owners of the right to defend themselves when they leave it, which is ironic. The reasoning behind the change is the result of someone using a firearm outside a bar, not in it.
