BRATTLEBORO — You might expect a certain amount of fatigue to set in among gun-control advocates.
Ann Braden will not allow herself that luxury.
The 35-year-old Brattleboro mother of two who founded Gun Sense Vermont told a crowd of about 70 that gathered in Pliny Park on Dec. 12 - to mark the third anniversary of the Sandy Hook school shooting - that while it is easy to turn off the television when the airwaves are filled with images of the latest mass shooting in America, there is one group of Americans who can't.
“I keep coming back to the survivors of gun violence,” Braden said. “They can't turn off those images.”
She urged those who gathered with her to keep their resolve.
“We can't let ourselves go numb,” Braden said. “We have to keep talking about the issue [of gun violence], support the lawmakers who have taken a stand on the issue and, most importantly, to stand with the victims of gun violence.”
Twenty students and six teachers lost their lives in a mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., on Dec. 14, 2012. Braden's mother, Sarah Bedichek, lives in Newtown, which brought the issue home to her.
A few months after Sandy Hook, Braden formed Gun Sense Vermont, a group whose goal is to get Vermont to toughen the state's firearms laws. The group says it has about 5,000 current members.
But gun control advocates have been frustrated by slow progress in Vermont.
The Legislature this year did pass a bill to prohibit felons from possessing firearms and requiring Vermont's courts to send the names of people who fall into that category to the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System database.
That step falls short of the mandatory universal background check for anyone wanting to purchase a firearm in Vermont that Gun Sense Vermont advocates, but Braden said before the vigil that she believes the current bill is a good start.
Braden and her organization have taken their share of criticism over the past two years from gun-rights activists, who say Vermont's status as one of the safest states in the nation is a reflection of the state's long tradition of responsible firearms ownership.
FBI and U.S. Census data show that 42 percent of Vermont households have guns, yet the state's crime rate was 115 violent crimes per 100,000 residents in 2013, about two-thirds lower than the national average of 368 violent crimes per 100,000 people.
Braden says the background check provision is supported by many Vermonters. According to a poll done in April by VTDigger and the Castleton Institute, 77 percent of respondents support background checks for all sales of firearms.
While Gun Sense Vermont is not planning to revisit the issue of background checks for the 2016 legislative session, Braden told Seven Days earlier this month that “we're definitely expecting to be involved in the election, supporting candidates who take a stand in support of gun violence prevention.”
“This is not about being pro-gun or anti-gun,” Braden said at the vigil. “It's about gun responsibility.”