Green Mountain path

Arkansas could follow a similar one

YOU’D NEVER know it to hear us talk to each other, but folks in Vermont and folks in Arkansas have a lot in common. (Just not accents.)

Both have a lot of pride. And maybe a bit of an inferiority complex with bigger states on our borders always hogging the spotlight. Both have plenty of rural acres for hunting and fishing. Both have gun cultures and a fair amount of hunting camps.

And both have had a martial, even a rebellious, streak in the past. (“There are your enemies! The redcoats and the Tories! They are ours, or this night Molly Stark sleeps a widow!”— General John Stark, hero of the Battle of Bennington, 1777.)

Vermont isn’t exactly Razorback-red when it comes to its politics, but believe it or not, it does have a Republican governor. You could look it up. His name is Phil Scott. He was in the news again last week for backing a package of new restrictions on guns that his state’s legislature sent him in response to that Florida shooting in February. Here’s hoping that once this year’s campaigns are all over and the Arkansas Ledge meets next year, this state will follow our cousins to the north, at least in this regard.

Of course, any time—every time— gun restrictions come up in political debate, there’ll be those who cry that our Second Amendment rights are being imperiled. In Vermont’s case, that’s just not true. After the ink is dry on the new laws, you’d have to be 21 to buy a gun in the state, bump stocks would be banned, and, the papers say, background checks would be expanded to include private purchases.

Let’s take those one at a time: Age restrictions on purchases already apply from state to state, depending on whether the gun is a handgun or a long gun. And federal law already prohibits those under 18 from possessing handguns. Age restrictions don’t violate the Second Amendment. Or the courts haven’t ruled they have so far.

Bump stocks, in effect, turn semi-automatic weapons into fully automatic weapons, and fully automatic weapons are so regulated that we don’t know a soul who owns one. These restrictions don’t violate the Second Amendment. Or the courts haven’t ruled they have so far.

Background checks are already required when buyers get guns at stores or pawn shops. The NRA has been a big supporter of instant background checks. So why not apply them to private purchases? These checks don’t violate the Second Amendment. Or the courts haven’t ruled they have so far.

We imagine that those who’d lean on the Second Amendment when these restrictions come up at the state level are worried—for good reason—that these changes might be only first steps to real gun control, in which states might ignore the Constitution and ban all guns. To which we’d say: Let’s have that fight when we get to it. These are the times when people are looking for “common-sense gun laws,” and the changes mentioned above are just about as common-sense as they get.

Let’s make them in Arkansas, too. On this matter, we shouldn’t allow ourselves to fall too far behind.