The Vermont Senate cleared legislation on Friday that would raise the legal age to purchase firearms to 21 for most people, broadens backgrounds checks on private gun sales, and prohibits high-capacity magazines.
The bill already passed in the Vermont House and has been sent to Republican Gov. Phil Scott, who says he will sign it into law.
However, Scott said he knew Vermont voters would be “disappointed” at the shift in the policies of the state, which is largely rural and has a high rate of gun ownership.
“I share it. I know why they are disappointed,” Scott said, according to the Associated Press. “But I think at the end of the day, they’ll soon learn that what we have proposed, what’s being passed at this time, doesn’t intrude upon the Second Amendment. It doesn’t take away guns, and I believe that we will get accustomed to the new normal, which is trying to address this underlying violence that we are seeing across the nation.”
But in a statement after the Senate passed the legislation, Scott said he had a “moral and legal obligation” to provide safety to Vermont citizens. He also said he planned to support two other gun-control measures in the state legislature.
“As Governor, I have a moral and legal obligation and responsibility to provide for the safety of our citizens,” Scott said in a statement. “If we are at a point when our kids are afraid to go to school and parents are afraid to put their kids on a bus, who are we?”
The action from the Vermont state legislature comes after the mass school shooting in Parkland, Fla., last month that took the lives of 17 individuals.
The shooting has prompted calls for stricter gun laws across the U.S.. Just last weekend, thousands of people nationwide participated in the March For Our Lives for anti-gun violence.
