OneClickPolitics

Background Checks Save Lives!

Dear Senator,

I urge you to support the upcoming criminal background check bill. Right now criminal background checks are required at federally licensed dealers but no where else that guns are sold. That means that a domestic abuser can simply go online, locate an unlicensed seller, and meet in a parking lot to buy a gun with no questions asked. There is no reason we should be making it easy for abusers to get weapons -- especially when you consider that in 2013 there were over 1,000 Final Protection from Abuse orders issued. (1)

Closing the loophole works. In the 16 states that have already passed similar legislation, 38% fewer women are shot to death by their intimate partners (while the non-firearm homicide rate is about the same). (2)

Moreover, this common sense reform resonates with Vermonters. 81% of likely Vermont Voters, including 77% of Vermont gun owners, support requiring criminal background checks on unlicensed sales. (3)

We need to close this loophole and make it harder for abusers and other dangerous individuals to get a gun. Please support this bill. It will help keep Vermont families safe!

Thank you for all your work.


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(1) State of Vermont, Domestic Violence Fatality Review Commission Report, 2014

(2) Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Supplementary Homicide Reports, 2011. Excludes New York due to incomplete data; Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Supplementary Homicide Report. 2010.

(3) Lincoln Park Strategies Poll, April 26, 2014
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