A gun rights advocate is urging advertisers and readers to boycott a Vermont newspaper after it published an editorial in support of stricter gun laws.
The Brattleboro Reformer on July 5 published an editorial titled “Our opinion: Vermont needs common sense gun control.” The editorial called for background checks for all gun buyers as well as other gun control measures.
In response to the editorial, gun rights advocate Alex Knight created a Facebook page called “Boycott the Brattleboro Reformer” and last week wrote a letter that he said he has mailed to at least 20 advertisers.
The letter accuses the newspaper of “almost constant attacks upon and disdain for Vermont’s long-standing tradition of virtually zero gun control regulations.” The letter demands that the paper adopt a “100 percent pro-gun rights stance.”
“Our goal and mission is nothing less than to put the Brattleboro Reformer, in both its print and web-based versions, out of business permanently,” the letter said.
Jordan Brechenser, the Reformer’s advertising director, said Monday that the paper has not experienced a drop in advertising or sales as a result of the letter, which was mailed on Oct. 22.
The Reformer’s executive editor, Tom D’Errico, said the paper ensures that its news stories are objective and welcomes letters to the editor from all viewpoints. The pro-gun group never contacted the paper before submitting the boycott letter, he said.
The Reformer editorial voiced support for the gun control group Gun Sense Vermont. That group is organizing across the state this summer and fall in preparation for the upcoming legislative session.
The group plans to back a bill to require criminal background checks for anyone who buys firearms in the state.
Gun Sense Vermont president Ann Braden on Monday said the Reformer editorial came without her group’s solicitation. Two days later, Braden wrote a letter to the editor to the Reformer to clarify that the editorial advocated for more new laws than Gun Sense wants.
“Our mission is focused specifically on keeping guns out of the wrong hands, so measures about what kind of guns responsible people can buy (whether assault weapons, high-capacity magazines, etc.) are measures that fall outside our advocacy work,” she wrote.
The group also supports passing a state law to require that high-level mental health data, such as if a person is found not guilty of a crime by reason of insanity, be reported to the federal database used for background checks.
The group is still working on a specific bill.
Gun Sense this year commissioned a poll that showed 81 percent of likely voters in Vermont support requiring gun buyers to pass a criminal background check
“The vast majority of Vermonters already support this and it just a matter of helping them raise their voices up so they can be heard at the Statehouse,” Braden said.
Gun rights advocates disagree. Vermont has some of the most lax gun laws in the nation but also low gun crime rates.
“Vermont laws have served Vermont very well,” Knight said.
