How Vermont embraced gun safety: Gun Sense VT founder Ann Braden on the challenges ahead
In December 2012, Adam Lanza, 20, shot and killed 26 students and teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT. Ann Braden, a stay at home mother of two in Brattleboro, VT, decided enough was enough. Shortly after the Newton killing, she gathered 12,000 signatures on a petition calling for universal background checks on all gun sales in Vermont. Braden looked for an organization pursuing common sense gun safety in Vermont, but didn’t find any. So she started her own. In early 2013, Braden founded Gun Sense VT. Her tireless efforts are now paying off. In the wake of another school shooting in Florida and the arrest of a would-be school shooter in Vermont, Gov. Phil Scott has reversed his earlier opposition and now backs several gun control measures. Braden recently stepped down as director of the organization to finish writing a young adult novel and run for State Senate in 2020. She applauds the student-led #NeverAgain gun safety movement and says, “My hope is that when someone raises a question about gun safety, that we can discuss it rationally and move forward.”
Ann Braden, Founder, Gun Sense Vermont
