When Ann Braden was 18 months old, her father died in a plane crash. She was on the aircraft, strapped into a car seat, but came away uninjured. “Because of that, I’ve always lived in full view of how precious, and brief, life can be and how important it is to use the time you’ve got well,” she said. “If someone is giving you the opportunity to do the right thing, you better take it.”
For Braden, that “opportunity” came in the wake of another tragedy: the fatal shootings of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. The 2012 incident inspired the 35-year-old mother of two to start a petition via MoveOn.org pushing for universal background checks on firearm purchasers. When she’d collected 12,000 names, MoveOn sent her an automated message asking if she had a plan for delivering the petition. She didn’t.
But Braden and a few of her supporters quickly came up with one. They dispatched the petition to Gov. Peter Shumlin in March 2013 and followed up with a Statehouse press conference. In the ornate Cedar Creek Room, Braden stood at the podium holding her infant daughter and called for universal background checks on all gun sales.
Looking back, Braden said with a laugh, “I naively thought that one petition was going to do something.”
Over the next two years, Braden repeatedly made the two-hour drive from her Brattleboro home to the Statehouse in Montpelier. She also endured being called a liar, an out-of-state interloper and a gun grabber who won’t rest until she has confiscated every last firearm.
Despite those accusations, the petite, soft-spoken former middle school teacher has successfully forced a difficult conversation in a state that fiercely protects its gun culture.
“If they hadn’t pushed to get legislation in, we wouldn’t be here,” said Tim Meehan, a veteran Montpelier lobbyist who came out of retirement to lobby for the Vermont Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs.
Last week, Braden watched as the Vermont House followed the Senate in passing the first new gun restrictions in years. The bill, which will likely head to the governor after the House and Senate reconcile minor differences, falls far short of an earlier version Braden supported that would have mandated universal background checks. Instead, it would make it harder for violent criminals and the severely mentally ill to possess guns by requiring courts to send the names of those they deem dangerous to a federal database.
“It’s not like I have some list of legislative priorities,” she said of the compromise. “It’s just that I believe this topic needs to be discussed in a rational way.”
Through it all, Braden has stuck to her guns. After she delivered that initial petition at the Statehouse — and realized the enormity of the undertaking — Braden and other gun-control supporters retreated to the cafeteria, sat down at a long table in the back and regrouped. “The only way this was going to work was if we had an organized movement,” she recalled.
Her online petition grew into Gun Sense Vermont, a well-organized, well-financed advocacy group that describes itself as an “independent, grassroots organization started by Vermonters, run by Vermonters, and focused on closing the gaps in Vermont’s gun laws.” The group claims that about 5,000 members have delivered 1,400 letters to their senators this legislative session.
As Gun Sense Vermont grew, Braden took on more responsibility. Near the end of 2013, the organization hired the Necrason Group, one of the most influential lobbying firms in Montpelier. The firm has coached Braden on everything from honing her message to how she carries herself. It helped her navigate the legislative process and face the opposition. She proved to be unflappable — even when surrounded by gun-rights supporters in very small hearing rooms — and also embraced the analytical side of being an advocate: spreadsheets.
“She deserves huge credit for her courage,” said Sen. Phil Baruth (D-Chittenden), who, after Sandy Hook, proposed a ban on assault weapons. He later withdrew it as a result of intense pressure from in- and outside the Senate Democratic caucus. “It’s very hard.”
After the initial Statehouse meeting, Braden said, “The bullying really started ratcheting up. There was one point in May, on Facebook, they got a hold of a picture of me and my kids. The comments were really hard to read,” she said. “They’re like, ‘Those aren’t really her kids. They’re props.’ As soon as they talk about my children, it hits at a deeper place.”
A posting from Twitter user @PRoseish_2, an account that has since been suspended, reads, “It’s important; kill #gunsense now.”
Braden considered quitting. “There was this 12-hour period where I said, ‘What am I doing?’ I said, ‘This isn’t going to get any easier.'” But her 5-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter kept her going. “It’s so important to me that he sees when it’s hard, I’m not giving up,” she said of her son. “The more they bullied, the more determined I was.”
Her opponents in the gun-rights community acknowledge that the debate can get heated.
Bob DePino of Westminster West, who oversees the Facebook page for Gun Owners of Vermont, said he explicitly reminds members to be polite with their comments. “We don’t condone bullying of any kind,” he said.
“We do have a lot of strong-willed people,” said sportsmen’s lobbyist Meehan. “Our members believe right down to their ankles.”
Gun-rights activists have focused some of their fury on the fact that Braden is not a native Vermonter. The 2001 Dartmouth College graduate grew up in Connecticut — she visited Newtown before the shootings — and moved to Vermont in 2006. Her husband, a teacher at Brattleboro Union High School, was born in Vermont, but she argued that it shouldn’t matter.
“I think it’s a mistake to judge someone based on where they happen to be born,” Braden said. “To suggest that somehow we shouldn’t have a say in our state, that we’re not actually Vermonters because of that, doesn’t seem in keeping with Vermont’s nature.”
DePino said it’s not that Braden is unwelcome in Vermont, but that she shouldn’t try to change the state’s culture. “I moved here 10 years ago because of the gun laws, the freedom of the state,” he said. “I didn’t come here trying to change the state. Don’t try to change the state you move to.”
Legislators also raised that argument. During a floor debate last month over the gun bill, Sen. John Rodgers (D-Essex/Orleans) called it “an attack on our heritage and our culture.
“I, for one, was born here and brought up in the gun culture, and I think others who moved to Vermont because they liked the culture are welcome,” Rodgers said. “Others, who have stated that they want to change our culture here, may want to seek another place that has a culture that they like.”
Gun Owners of Vermont president Ed Cutler, who lives in Westminster, has a different beef. “I have a problem with her not admitting where she’s getting her money from,” he said.
Gun-rights activists argue that out-of-state interests — in particular former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg — fund Gun Sense. The billionaire businessman started several gun-control organizations, including Mayors Against Illegal Guns and Everytown for Gun Safety. In January, the latter bought online ads from Vermont news organizations supporting an earlier version of the gun bill, but appeared to pull out of Vermont after lawmakers dropped the universal background provision.
“I think they’ve been bought and paid for,” Cutler said of Gun Sense.
Cutler bases his suspicions on how quickly the group came together — hiring a lobbying firm, contributing $29,000 to legislative candidates last fall and spending $78,000 last year on lobbying. Under questioning in the House Judiciary Committee, Braden acknowledged Gun Sense pays her a salary. She later said the group has one part-time and two full-time staffers, including her, all of whom will revert to volunteers after the legislative session ends in May.
When the House Judiciary Committee grilled Braden about her group’s funding in an April 8 hearing, she refused to disclose its contributors.
“The decisions are made by Vermonters,” she said in response to questions from Rep. Tom Burditt (R-West Rutland). “It’s regular people who are speaking up to make their voices heard at the Statehouse.”
On the House floor last week, opponents of the bill pursued a similar line of interrogation. Rep. Brian Savage (R-Swanton) said, “Tens of thousands of dollars in special interest money from outside of Vermont has poured into advertising campaigns, lobbyists and in marketing efforts designed to scare constituents into believing we have a gun violence problem in the state” — words that were repeated by other Republican legislators.
Braden conceded that she looks to national organizations for information but said she is unwilling to disclose Gun Sense Vermont’s donors, in order to protect them. “Everyone who is at all connected to us has been mocked on Facebook,” she said. “We don’t release our donor names to ensure they don’t have to face public bashing.”
Gun Owners of Vermont and the Vermont Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs both say they receive no money from national organizations. Gun-rights groups have reported spending money on lobbying, but far less than Gun Sense Vermont. Last year, the National Rifle Association spent $1,349. The Vermont Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs, which is an NRA affiliate, spent $2,711. Lobbying disclosures for the first quarter of this year are due later this month.
The Vermont Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs has backed off its opposition to the current bill — it’s too weak to oppose, according to vice president of NRA Foundation projects Evan Hughes. But, he added, “We’ll strenuously oppose any gun-control legislation in the future.”
Hughes speaks for gun-rights activists who fear that Braden will continue to attack their rights. In February, when the Senate Judiciary Committee decided against including universal background checks, she admitted she’d continue to fight for them in coming years. “Inch by inch, she will get a complete ban on certain firearms and permits,” Cutler predicted. “You name it, and they’re going to try to get it.”
Braden said she has no interest in confiscating guns. “I’m not anti-gun,” she said. “Our line in the sand is keeping guns out of the wrong hands. Background checks make sense. We have really found a balance of protecting the Second Amendment and protecting people from violence.”
At the recent House Judiciary Committee hearing, Rep. Vicki Strong (R-Albany) questioned Braden’s motives. “Have you been a person who’s gone to Memorial Day and Veterans Day parades?” she asked.
Braden said she had been.
Later, Braden said it seemed as though Strong were questioning her patriotism. “I have a flag on our stoop,” Braden said. “I was a social studies teacher.”
Strong, whose Marine son Jesse was killed in Iraq in 2005, said later that she was trying to ask whether Braden understood how much some Americans had sacrificed in defending the Constitution.
Rep. Sam Young (D-Glover) brought another perspective to the House floor last week as lawmakers debated the gun bill that finally emerged, two years after Braden brought her petition to Montpelier.
Young spoke last before the House voted 80-62 to pass the bill on Friday morning. Choking back tears, he said that his brother had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia at age 22. After several hard years, Young’s brother went missing in January 2004. He was found in the woods a year and a half later, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
“We’d been down to the local gun store,” Young recounted. “My dad said, ‘Jim, don’t you dare sell my son a gun.’ That worked in Glover, but he only had to go as far as Lyndonville to buy a gun.”
Sitting alone at the far end of the visitor’s gallery in the House chamber, Braden wiped away tears as she listened.
If his brother’s name was in a database, Young said, he couldn’t have bought a gun. “His name was Timothy James Young. He looked a lot like me. Maybe that was one life you could’ve saved with this bill.”
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This article appears in Apr 22-28, 2015.
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It’s sure easy to do when you have Bloomberg’s money rolling in.
Teachers? Bought & paid for by Bloomberg? Nobody should be surprised. And while this halfway measure targets mental illness and not the evil firearm itself, Bloomberg doubtlessly counts it as a stepping stone aimed at total confiscation.
“Braden said she has no interest in confiscating guns.”
I doubt that, ask her if she is okay with persons that have a restraining order against them keeping their guns, or even persons merely accused of domestic violence. Ask her if persons that other people think are suicidal should be allowed to keep their guns. Ask her if persons that use marijuana should be allowed to keep their guns.
I would bet that in all of those situations she would respond with “Confiscate them!”
She is all of the things that she has been accused of. She moved here from Connecticut and instead of embracing Vermont values she spends her time trying to turn Vermont into the state she left especially their draconian gun laws. She refuses to disclose her donors because they are out of state billionaires trying to buy Vermont. Bloomberg’s gun control organization has publicly admitted that they are financing her organization. Their expensive lobbyist admitted that they had to talk to the national organization during hearings in Montpelier. As far as her and her organization not being anti-gun, anyone that has followed this debate has seen the picture of her holding a sign that says that “assault weapons” should be banned. Tell me this Ann, if you had your way and got the most popular rifle in the United States banned how are you going to get them out of the hands of those that own them?
Enjoy your minor victory if this bill passes because there is an election coming up and we have a long memory.
I’d just like to know this. If Gun Sense VT has no ties to bloomberg, how is it that they can spend significantly more than they report as coming in?
Thank you so much, Ann, and your colleagues, for all the hard work you are doing to keep all of our loved ones safe from gun violence. Your hard work will save so many lives.
Her tears and emotions should be saved up and shared with all those that will be turned out to political pasture in 2016.. This is not Connecticut, etc. etc. yet
“Gun-rights activists argue that out-of-state interests — in particular former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg — fund Gun Sense…. but appeared to pull out of Vermont after lawmakers dropped the universal background provision.”
“Appeared to”… until their lobbyist told Sen. Sears he needed to consult with their “national headquarters” before he could answer a question about whether or not they could live with a bill wthat didn’t include universal gun registration and requiring all sales to go through a licensed gun seller.
Gun Sense VT is a grass roots organization? If so, why are you paid Ann? Why do you have paid employees?
The Gun Owners of Vermont and Vermont Federation of Sportsmans Clubs are all volunteers including their lobbyists which are not paid, Eddie, Chris, Evan and Clint. I think they are Grass roots. I know Tim and he did accept compensation but no where near the $78,000 you(Ann) paid Adam.
Gunsense spent close to over, in my estimate, $130K not including salaries and your opposition only spent $17000 according to the Vermont Secretary of State Office. I know we will all learn more on what you spent in a couple days.
After reading the remnants of S31 aka S141, I would say Gunsense got their butts kicked by a real Grass roots organization. That bill got gutted like a perch at a fish fry.
If I were GunSense, I would not be celebrating. Nor would I if I donated to Ann. As an experienced lobbyist, I would be looking for a new lobbyist or a new cause because you lost big time at a High cost!
Gunsense is nothing but astroturf and an epic fail.
People will believe what they want to believe regardless of the facts. Twelve thousand people signed the petition supporting this bill, all Vermonters. Lots of people volunteered to work on this campaign and didn’t get paid a dime. Lots of people supported the campaign and didn’t get paid a dime. I know, I volunteered some time to support this law, did what little I could. So did my wife. So did dozens of folks I know, all people who live and work right here in Vermont. Polls show Vermonters overwhelming favor gun safety laws – including background checks, the provision which did not pass – for no good reason.
The real story here is not that this was somehow imposed from outside Vermont. The real story is how hard it is to get sensible legislation passed when confronted with a minority of people who see no point of view but their own, who believe that they are the only ones in society who never have to compromise, and who care about only one issue.
And it is not as if they didn’t have lobbyists in the legislature every single day doing everything they could to defeat the bill.
So explain it away if that does something for you. GunSense, everyone who signed petitions, wrote letters, talked to their legislators, Legislators, all those Vermonters, who in independent polling indicated their support, all bought and paid for by Michael Bloomberg? Really? Time to get over yourselves. What happened here is Democracy carried the day.
That petition with 12,000 signatures was run through Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety. It was advertised nationally and contained very few Vermont names. I have friends that live on the west coast that saw the ad and were able to click on the link and fill it out. Bloomberg spent thousands of dollars of out of state money to run that campaign.
If this was really a grassroots organization why is the side supporting gun control regularly outnumbered at events by 5x-10x? The answer to that is pretty clear. The true grassroots is the side protecting our rights.
“After the initial Statehouse meeting, Braden said, “The bullying really started ratcheting up.”
No, Ann, YOU are the bully. YOU started this. YOU are the one who began with a laundry list of attacks on the rights of good and decent Vermonters. We haven’t forgotten Burlington, and we do not need or want your “help.”
“She also endured being called a liar, an out-of-state interloper and a gun grabber who won’t rest until she has confiscated every last firearm.”
You’re being called those things, Ann, because they are true.
This, however:
“Braden said she has no interest in confiscating guns. ‘I’m not anti-gun,’ she said.”
is a lie.
Gee… everyone’s so peeved about her being from CT or being funded by out of state dollars. But the NRA is OK? Nice double standard. It’s crazy to suggest that keeping guns out of the hands of the criminally insane and convicted criminals and the suicidal is impinging on gun owners’ rights. About 50% of the work force in Vermont was born in another state. Culture is the current population, not history. ‘Gun culture” is not Vermont’s culture. About 45% of Vermonters have a gun in their home (including me). That means a strong majority DON’T.
Egmatic, I’d need to see a cite on that 45%. Not buying that; I say it’s a lot more. Just like the money GunSenseVT put into this nonsense is a lot more than the national NRA, who basically did NOTHING here but send a guy named Darin Goens to sit and watch, and shoot off his mouth at exactly the wrong time.
Gun “rights” people, you do not speak for what is “Vermont culture.” You cannot claim exclusive rights to define it. In every poll, from the Castleton Institute to Vermont Digger, an overwhelming majority of Vermonters support regulation of guns as common sense, knowing such regulations in other states in no way have prevented the pursuit of hunting and other gun sports by law-abiding citizens. That is simply a fact. And if you pay taxes in Vermont, and live in Vermont, you are a Vermonter. There is no requirement to be born here, no litmus test of political persuasion. Vermont has always stood for tolerance, and bullying, threatening and insulting the integrity of people who disagree with you is just plain wrong, certainly not part of the Vermont tradition.
It is plainly a great idea for violent felons and mentally ill persons to have the right to own guns. Why? Because the people opposing gun ownership by violent felons and mentally ill persons aren’t from Vermont, and they are funded by Michael Bloomberg (who is the devil).
The complaint about Gun Sense VT’s funding coming from out of state is valid only if the gun owners can explain how those “special interests” stand to gain from success in the State House…and I would love to see the logic they’d use to support that claim.
I found the article too long. I can’t spend so much time in it. I do think it would be worth asking those who think their version of Vermont’s gun culture should mean that convicted violent felons and people with histories of violent, particularly domestic or that ‘hormonal’ stuff that (more men) people get into should continue to be able to go whacky on their mates and families. How is this a good part of Vermont culture?
The castelton “poll” doesnt speak for vt residents JLPEN. Vermont culture has been fine without bloomberg money for over 200 years. I think we can do fine without having to defend our rights, but we WILL!