Legal Question in Criminal Law in Vermont

Re: Firearms restrictions

To my knowledge, no court has ever held that the second amendment actually gives individuals the right to bear arms. Several courts have specifically said that it does not, so the theory that Americans have a constitutional right to own guns is batting .000.

The second amendment was written in order to permit states to operate civil militias, and its authors might be quite surprised to learn that people now argue that it means everyone can own a gun.

Of course, the fact that gun ownership is not enshrined in the Constitution doesn't imply that owning guns is illegal. The Constitution simply doesn't address the issue on way or the other.

This means that your local court can include a restriction on gun ownership as a condition of your son's sentence. Since I am not a Vermont attorney I can't say whether it will or not, but I also don't see what difference it makes. Your son is hardly in a position to dictate the terms of his sentence.

I also urge you to consider whether you really want to have guns in your home at all. All I know about your family is what you have written, but having guns lying around a house where family members get into drunken brawls so serious that the police have to intervene is just asking for trouble. It is also a good example of why sensible gun control is a good idea. After all, even if the kind of event you describe is not an everyday occurrence in your home, it only needs to happen once for things to go horribly awry.