2 weeks Ago
BOSTON — Opponents of the state’s tough new gun control law say they’ve cleared a major hurdle in a push to repeal the new restrictions, which they argue will hurt businesses, cost jobs and deprive people of their constitutional rights. The Civil Rights Coalition, a coalition of gun owners and businesses that’s behind efforts to repeal the law, said Tuesday that it has collected 90,000 signatures to put the issue before the state’s voters in the 2026 elections, ahead of a Wednesday deadline to submit them to the Secretary of State’s office. A law signed by Democratic Gov.
Maura Healey in July expanded the state’s bans on “assault” weapons and high-capacity magazines, outlawed so-called “ghost” guns and set new restrictions on the open carry of firearms, among other provisions. Lawmakers approved the bill in response to concerns about mass shootings and gun violence. But critics of the new restrictions say they are unconstitutional and argue the changes will do little to reduce gun violence in the state, which already has one of the lowest rates of firearm deaths in the nation.
“This law is aimed at harming lawful, peaceful citizens,” Cape Cod Gun Works owner Toby Leary, the group’s chairman, said Tuesday at a Statehouse briefing. “It wasn’t to reduce crime, or get guns off the streets or lock violent felons up. This was purely political.
” Leary said proponents of the ballot question are seeking to block the law from going into effect while they pursued the ballot question, but that effort may have been blocked by Healey who last week signed an executive order adding an emergency preamble to the law, putting its provisions into effect immediately. The repeal effort is one of several seeking to block the law. The Massachusetts Gun Owners’ Action League, which is affiliated with the National Rifle Association, filed a federal lawsuit in August seeking to overturn the new law’s training and licensing requirements.
On Friday, a Bellingham gun shop owner filed a federal lawsuit alleging that sections of the new law updating the definition of ‘assault-style’ firearms run afoul of Second Amendment protections. Gino Recchia, of Mass Armament, said he stands to lose about 70% of his business from the new restrictions and argues that many of the weapons banned under the new rules are permitted to be sold under federal law. He said that could force him to lay off employees or go out of business.
The state’s new gun control law, which passed despite objections from the Legislature’s Republican minority, added dozens of long rifles to a list of prohibited guns under the assault weapons ban, and outlawed the open carry of firearms in government buildings, polling places and schools, with exemptions for law enforcement officials. It also expanded the state’s “red flag” law, which allows a judge to suspend the gun license of someone deemed at risk to themselves or others, to allow physicians, nurses, psychiatrists and other health care professionals to petition a judge to issue an “extreme risk protection” orders. Massachusetts already has some of the toughest gun control laws in the country, including real-time license checks for private gun sales and stiff penalties for gun-based crimes.
Gun control advocates argue the strict requirements have given the largely urban state one of the lowest gun-death rates in the nation, while not infringing on the right to bear arms. Despite those trends, Democrats who pushed the gun control bill thorough the Legislature argued that gun violence is still impacting communities across the state whether by suicide, domestic violence or drive-by shootings. Second Amendment groups have long argued that the tougher gun control laws are unnecessary, and punish law-abiding gun owners while sidestepping the issue of illegal firearms.
But Second Amendment groups argue that tougher gun control laws are unnecessary, and punish law-abiding gun owners while sidestepping the issue of illegal firearms. Christian M. Wade covers the Massachusetts Statehouse for North of Boston Media Group’s newspapers and websites.
Email him at [email protected] ..
