A lot of bills get proposed every session. Very few get enacted. That’s sorta how a democracy works.

Kind of, and no.

There was a guy in Pawlet not following town rules, threatening neighbors, and doing a shooting program. It's an ongoing struggle that has worried police/neighbors/town officials with how he is not following rules. We will see what he does now that the court has issued major fines and ordered him to demolish buildings.

As for open carry, absolutley not a problem, just another case of "seeing something else where and deciding its an issue needing solving here". It also is a nice bonus if it demonized gun owners and makes firearms "that much scarier/hard to own". I hope the open carry measure is stripped out.

No they just want to take your guns. I’m pretty sure these people have never fired a rifle let alone actually been to gun club to educate themselves.

There's a camp in Pawlet that I guess is of concern. I think it's going to be hard to draw the line between some guys target shooting together and some guys training themselves militarily, though.

No, the “paramilitary training” facility in pawlet that obviously influenced the writing of this bill was already a flagrant zoning violation at the local level in a number of ways. It’s just that zoning enforcement takes a while because due process of law and all that jazz, and Banyai is an uncommonly bad faith actor who is willing to face jail time rather than admit he’s got no case. If the legislature actually cared about this as a real land use issue, they could take a look at the powers delegated to municipalities for zoning enforcement, or the statutorily define process for zoning enforcement cases that wind up in environmental court. In any event, it’s a solution in search of a problem, and the worst kind of performative legislating.

I think it’s pretty obvious that the open carry ban piece, if passed, would never ultimately survive a second amendment challenge, but is also likely in violation of the state constitutional right to bear arms as well. If the piece about “paramilitary training” facilities covers even non-commercial peaceable assembly for the sake of militia training, that seemingly violates the first and second amendments on its face.

Preempting municipal zoning to ban commercial firearms training facilities statewide is probably also not constitutionally survivable, but that’s the piece that seems closest to passing the sniff test out of the litany of problematic clauses in this bill

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It definitely is a big issue in southwest Vermont. The entire community was scared of the training center/security compound and the guy that ran it. Our Governor said he was unable to do anything legally.