Tuesday, voters in Vermont go to the polls for the state's primary elections.
On the Republican side, the race for governor has featured extensive discussions of gun rights during the primary campaigns.
"It accomplishes nothing to make anyone safer," argued Keith Stern, a Republican running for Vermont governor, describing the recently-enacted package of gun restrictions in his small state.
Authorized this spring by Gov. Phil Scott, R-Vermont, the rules expand background checks, limit the capacity of magazines, give law enforcement more authority — after due process — to seize firearms from people deemed a risk to themselves or others, and raise the age for gun purchases to 21 in most cases.
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A less controversial measure in the new rules was the banning of so-called "bump stocks," which increase the speed at which certain firearms discharge bullets.
Keith Stern claims many of the measures in Vermont's new gun laws are unconstitutional, and said he would like to see a repeal.
Vermont Attorney General T.J. Donovan, a Democrat who agreed with the steps taken by the Legislature and Gov. Scott, said earlier this year that gun rights are not absolute, and could be regulated.
When Scott signed the bills into law in April in Montpelier, gun rights supporters booed him, fearing a slippery slope. Many vowed that Scott, a Republican, would pay a political price.
"If somebody gets drunk and kills somebody with a car, we don't make it harder for people to drive a car," gun rights supporter Mike Channon said in April in an interview with necn. "Phil Scott used the NRA to get elected. And as far as I'm concerned, he could run on the Democratic ticket now."
Stern is now giving an alternative to conservatives in Tuesday's Vermont primary, running against Scott and promising to
