With town meeting day behind us and crossover looming next Friday, March 13th it almost seemed like we might get by without any action on gun bills this year, but it appears not.

We have just received word that the House Judiciary Committee will be taking up Bill H.606 on Wednesday. March 11, just 3 days before the deadline for crossover.

H.606, dubbed “The Omnibus Gun Control Bill”, is a massive, 5-part proposal full of bad news for gun owners. The bill in it’s current form can be viewed here: https://legislature.vermont.gov/Documents/2026/Docs/BILLS/H-0606/H-0606%20As%20Introduced.pdf

We understand that the Vermont Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs has been invited to give a brief testimony on Wednesday, but as of this announcement, Gun Owners of Vermont has not yet been invited. The rest of the witness list seems filled with the usual suspects from the paid, out-of-state gun control groups, Giffords, Everytown, Gun Sense, et.al.

The committee’s late action on this is highly concerning because there is no possible way to properly cover all of the different points of this bill in the time period given. H.606 has FIVE SEPARATE GUN CONTROL LAWS jammed into one bill – including a VERY dangerous proposal to regulate the rate of fire on semi-automatic weapons (point 4).

Any one of these proposals by themselves, carry enough nuance, legal implication, and potential infringement on civil liberties that it should be subjected to weeks of rigorous debate, including testimony from a wide range of expert witnesses, AND public hearings.

Taking up a massive gun control package like this at the eleventh-hour reeks of dirty politics and further validates our longstanding feeling that the decision has already been made before we even walk in the room. The time to act is now.

We are asking everyone to contact the members of the House Judiciary Committee and politely tell them NO to H.606. Tell them that ramming a bill like this through at the last minute with only minimal testimony from pro-gun groups and without a public hearing is unacceptable, and that type of practice should not be part of the democratic legislative process.

We are also asking for volunteers to come to the Statehouse on Wednesday, March 11th to wear orange and sit in solidarity with gun owners who are tired of being pushed around by their elected officials. If you can make it, please email: info@gunownersofvermont.org. The act of just sitting quietly in the committee room or the hallway with your orange GoVT shirt (provided) has a profound effect on the people who make laws and we’ve done this successfully in the past.

GoVT is an all-volunteer organization, and we rely on our members (you guys) to help us affect the outcomes of these bills.  Please consider getting involved in any way you can, whether it’s volunteering to sit in at the statehouse or even just joining GoVT as an official member here: https://gunownersofvermont.org/research-analysis/GoVT_DOWNLOADS/GoVT_Membership.htm

Stay tuned for more updates.

Members of the House Judiciary Committee:
Martin LaLonde – Chair mlalonde@leg.state.vt.us
Tom Burditt – Vice Chair tburditt@leg.state.vt.us
Kevin “Coach” Christie kchristie@leg.state.vt.us
Angela Arsenault aarsenault@leg.state.vt.us
Karen Dolan kndolan@leg.state.vt.us
Ian Goodnow igoodnow@leg.state.vt.us
Ken Goslant kgoslant@leg.state.vt.us
Zachary Harvey zharvey@leg.state.vt.us
Alicia Malay amalay@leg.state.vt.us
Thomas Oliver toliver@leg.state.vt.us
Barbara Rachelson brachelson@leg.state.vt.us