Vermont has created quite a problem for members of the anti-gunner left, who constantly yammer on about how having lenient gun laws inevitably leads to rampant bloodbaths all over the place.
Indeed, the state has some of the most lax restrictions on firearms in the country, yet people aren’t running around shooting each other willy-nilly like the Wild West hellscape leftists claim will happen when people are allowed to keep and bear arms.
WokeSpy published a piece discussing Vermont’s gun laws and violent crime rates, pointing out that the state received an “F” on its gun control scorecard from the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, one of the most preeminent anti-gunner organizations in the United States.
In 2018, the organization noted that “Vermont has some of the weakest gun laws in the country.” The Washington Post pointed out that in Vermont, “you can conceal and carry a firearm at age sixteen in the state without a license. The state also has no minimum age to own a rifle or shotgun.”
These anti-gunners have taken issue with the fact that Vermont does not require permits or registration to purchase or carry a firearm. Yet, the state also has some of the lowest rates of crime in the nation.
Vermont sounds like a scene out of Mad Max when described by the anti-gun lobby, but the state’s residents would probably laugh at the characterization. Vermont was the safest state in the nation in 2016, 2017, and 2018, second safest in 2019 and 2020, and the safest in 2021, 2022 and 2023.
The pattern here is clear – and especially surprising considering how crime-plagued any place run by leftists usually are.
Gun violence in particular is almost non-existent. According to the Vermont Department of Health, they had only seven gun homicides a year every year from 2011 to 2014. In 2015 the state had twelve, but that fell back to seven in 2016. In a state of 620,000, that’s a rate of 1.12 firearm homicides per 100,000 people in a typical year.
The FBI statistics report only two gun homicides in Vermont in 2012, for a firearm homicide rate of 0.3 per 100,000.
The reason why Vermont poses a problem for anti-gunners is simple: It shows that it’s not the guns, stupid. It’s the people.
In major cities located in states with stricter gun laws, the crime rates are far higher.
Indeed, cities like St. Louis (66.7 gun homicides per 100,000), Birmingham (61.3), Detroit (44), and Memphis (42.4) have exponentially higher gun violence than Vermont. “It says a lot when you can have a 185% jump in gun homicides and still have the fewest gun homicides per-capita in the entire country,” notes WokeSpy. “It’s no wonder liberals are quick to criticize Vermont’s gun laws but never seem to talk about Vermont’s gun violence.”
The bottom line is that gun restrictions do not stop violent crime, nor do they prevent suicides. What causes crime is lax law enforcement policies and making it harder for law-abiding people to carry guns. They leave people defenseless to criminal elements who care nothing for the anti-gunner lobby’s cherished firearm restrictions. This is why cities in states with stricter laws still have higher rates of crime. When the population is unarmed, it is easier for bad actors to target them.
Of course, the anti-gunners are already aware of this. For them, it was never about public safety; it is about making it harder for everyday Americans to be armed. They want people to rely on the government for their protection instead of understanding that the state cannot always stop violent people from victimizing them. This is about control, not safety.