During this weekend’s debate, Bernie Sanders got hammered by Hillary Clinton over gun control. And, in truth, Sanders has some fairly serious questions to answer on the topic. But the fundamental question really comes down to whether or not Sanders really gets why gun rights are such a central concern in America right now.
Bernie Sanders’ record on guns is outright baffling. Sanders has publicly stated himself to be a moderate, but in 1993, he voted against the Brady Bill. In 2005, he voted for the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, a law that prevents those shot by firearms from suing gun manufacturers. The latter vote Sanders insisted was a state’s rights issue over federally mandated waiting periods, but it’s difficult to see how that might have much of an impact on Vermont.
Generally, Sanders’ stance on guns is seen one of two ways. The first is an apologia you see on Facebook: Vermont is a rural state, and rural states are more likely to own guns. The second is an accusation: Sanders, who was once endorsed by the NRA, is in the pocket of the gun lobby. But neither excuse holds water.
Vermont is often stereotyped as a hippie enclave, but its gun laws contradict that. There’s no state with fewer gun laws, and Vermont doesn’t even have a permit system for carrying firearms. In fact, for the longest time, Vermont only had two gun laws: You couldn’t shoot anybody, and you couldn’t have a silencer on your gun. That changed last year: The state legalized silencers.
That said, Vermont’s not a state in love with guns. Just over a quarter of Vermonters even own any sort of gun in the first place, and while you can’t find ownership statistics broken down by type of gun, even the state’s top politicians are startled to see a handgun on someone’s belt. In Vermont, more often than not, a gun is a tool you use to procure game, not plunk at paper targets.
It’s popular, outside Vermont, to spin Sanders’ first Congressional win as at least partially due to the NRA, but frankly, that’s underselling the Herculean effort of Sanders and fundamentally misunderstands how Vermont politics work. Sanders had been campaigning for office in Vermont since the early 1970s. In 1981, he finally won a government post, the mayorship of Burlington, Vermont’s largest city. He kept it for nearly a decade, winning three times and even beating a Democrat endorsed by both Democratic and Republican state committees during his third election. In 1988, he nearly beat Peter Smith, the man he’d defeat in 1990 for his Congressional seat, losing out by just three percent of the vote.
Nor did Sanders win because Vermont is a far left state just waiting for the right socialist to come along. Sanders won the Congressional seat due to his hard work as the mayor of Burlington. He balanced the city budget, redeveloped the city’s waterfront into a mixed use area, dragged local cable operators into court and secured lower rates for the city, and created community-trust housing to keep rents down. He even got a minor league baseball team to move to the city. By the end of his tenure, he was considered one of the best mayors in the entire country.
Sanders is not financially beholden to the NRA, either. He’s never taken a dime from them for his campaign. Sanders’ career has never been at risk over gun control votes, and while he caucused with the Democratic party, he was an independent for much of his career.
I’ve voted for Bernie, twice, back in the early 2000s and honestly, I’ve struggled with his votes on guns. The conclusion I’ve come to, after years of thinking about it, is that Bernie just does not get it when it comes to guns. His great virtue as a Vermont politician is that nobody works harder for the state that elected him, but that means his vision can be limited to the inside of Vermont’s borders. Whether he can make that next step, whether he can grasp that there’s more to this country than the Green Mountains, is a question Democratic primary voters need answered, quickly.