Defender General tells House Judiciary Committee H.606 appears overbroad; urges explicit petition to restore firearm rights

Montpelier — Matt Valerio, Vermont’s Defender General, told the House Judiciary Committee on May 12 that H.606’s provisions restricting firearms for people subject to mental-health orders appear overly broad and may invite constitutional litigation unless the bill explicitly preserves a petition-based restoration process.

Valerio framed his testimony as legal analysis rather than advocacy, saying his office’s role is to “stand to defend the constitutional right to bear arms” and to test whether statutes pass constitutional muster. He warned the committee that court outcomes in this area are difficult to predict and often turn on the facts of individual cases.

The Defender General singled out categories covered by the bill — commitment orders, hospitalization orders, incompetence findings and similar mental-health interventions — as circumstances in which restrictions might be justified. But he said the current draft risks capturing people who are not dangerous, including individuals who have been treated and returned to normal activities such as hunting.

“This area that you’re delving into in H.606 … starts off with a kind of full-blown right to bear arms and then, under certain circumstances, you can limit that right,” Valerio said. “The question is can you do that in this particular case … or have you been overly broad in carving out the area you are attempting to carve out.”

Valerio proposed restoring an explicit petition or restoration clause that he said appeared in an earlier draft. He said restoring that mechanism — rather than relying on inferred restoration when an order expires — would make the statute clearer and more likely to withstand legal scrutiny. He described having seen earlier versions that allowed court petitions to restore rights and noted that a later draft seemed to omit that language.

Valerio also warned against criminalizing people who have already been adjudicated incompetent or subject to non-hospitalization orders, calling the approach “logically inconsistent” if a person lacks competency and then is charged with a new crime tied to firearm possession. He urged the committee to consider administrative remedies such as confiscation procedures rather than creating new criminal penalties for people already deemed incompetent.

Committee members pressed Valerio on specifics. One asked whether petition language could be added back; the chair said the committee could consider reintroducing it and that the text should make restoration explicit rather than merely infer it. Valerio agreed that striking or narrowing certain sections (he referenced “section three”) would reduce the constitutional concerns he described.

The committee also discussed technical statutory choices raised by Valerio, including which statutory definition of “firearm” to reference and how the state’s reporting system (referred to in testimony as the NYX system) interacts with existing statutes on treatment and reporting. Valerio noted the bill appeared to narrow some reporting compared with existing law but urged clarity on citations and petition procedures.

Near the end of the session a committee member moved that the committee report H.606 adversely. Members discussed timing and the possibility of further consideration, and no formal recorded vote appears in the transcript.

What happens next: committee members said they would continue discussion, including consideration of re-inserting a petition/restoration clause and consulting with Senate Judiciary committee members; the bill could be reconsidered if amended or if it reaches the Senate.