Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey signed into law last week the state’s latest anti-Bruen tantrum, with the headline from the state’s claiming the new gun laws “will save lives”:
Massachusetts is proud of our strong gun laws, but there is always more work to be done to keep our communities safe from violence.
This legislation updates our firearms laws in response to the Supreme Court’s misguided Bruen decision.
It cracks down on ghost guns and 3D-printed weapons, which I have long advocated for, enhances our ability to prevent guns from falling into dangerous hands, and invests in our communities to address the root causes of violence.
This law will save lives, and I’m grateful to the Legislature and gun safety advocates for their hard work to see this through.
The New Grab-bag of Laws
The 116-page grab-bag containing gun/people controllers’ dreams will not save lives, but instead is likely to put more innocent and now-disarmed Bay State residents’ lives at risk. Criminals who once thought their victims might be armed and able to defend themselves against an attack are now more comfortable in considering them as prey, unarmed and therefore vulnerable to their predations.
That grab-bag not only extends and expands the state’s already lengthy list of unconstitutional infringements of the Second Amendment, but adds new crimes as well:
- It broadens the state’s prohibition on so-called assault weapons;
- It completely bans possession of LCMs — large capacity magazines — capable of holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition;
- It expands the definition of “prohibited areas” (i.e., “gun free zones”);
- It adds new training requirements for people seeking permission to carry a firearm concealed on their person;
- It prohibits the manufacture, possession, sale, or transfer of so-called ghost guns;
- It prohibits the use of 3-D printers in making them;
- It expands its ban on “automatic parts” — any device that could turn a semiautomatic firearm into one that fires many rounds with a single press of the trigger;
- It expands the number of people who can demand the confiscation of firearms under the state’s “red flag” laws to now include physicians, RNs, LPNs, CNPs, psychiatrists, mental health practitioners, school principals or assistant principals, and college administrators;
- It convenes a “special commission” to investigate “emerging firearm technology” to make recommendations to the Legislature for additional restrictions and limitations on it as it evolves;
- It creates a new crime: firing a gun and striking an occupied building; and
- It requires the state’s present gun registry to provide that information to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, thus expanding that federal agency’s already unconstitutional registries of lawful firearms owners.
Reactions
John Rosenthal, founder of Stop Handgun Violence, reiterated the canard that such additional restrictions and limitations applying to the state’s law-abiding citizens will somehow save lives. The new gun laws, he said, “will effectively close dangerous loopholes in existing law, save countless lives and endless grief from preventable gun violence and do so without any inconvenience to law-abiding gun owners and sportspeople like me.” (Emphasis added.)
According to Jim Wallace, executive director of Gun Owners Action League (GOAL):
[The new law is] simply a tantrum because of the Supreme Court case in Bruen. The powers that be that support this garbage basically couldn’t handle being told [by the Supreme Court in Bruen that] they’re wrong and went on a fit, and that’s what this represents.
Indeed, when the decision in Bruen was handed down two years ago, Governor Healey called it “a grave danger to Americans” and “misguided.”
Gun Owners Action League is preparing to sue Healey over the law, as is the National Rifle Association. Gun Owners of America (GOA) is considering such action as well.
Tyrants opposed to the private ownership of firearms use the “saves lives” narrative as cover for their real intention — the disarmament of the citizenry to prevent any resistance to their planned tyranny. No one voluntarily enters a boxcar headed to the death camps; he must be disarmed first.
Related article:
Massachusetts Bill Would Implement “Most Egregious Gun Control” in U.S.
