Sportsmen’s federation urges statewide firearms consistency, warns municipal gun bans may conflict with state law

Chris Bradley, representing the Vermont Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs, testified to the House Government Operations & Military Affairs Committee on Feb. 13 that Vermont’s statutory limits on municipal firearms regulation have preserved consistent statewide rules for hunting, possession and related activity and that local ordinances expanding firearms bans risk clashing with state law and recent U.S. Supreme Court precedent.

Bradley, whose organization formed in 1875 and helped create the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife, urged the committee to respect 24 V.S.A. §2295, which he described as restricting municipalities to regulating only the discharge of firearms and leaving possession, storage, hunting and ammunition to state law. "That has prevented what I would refer to as a patchwork of disparate laws as a Vermonter who is a firearms owner travels across the state," Bradley said.

He summarized recent U.S.…