By Mike Harris
Special to TGM
On Wednesday, Oct. 18 the Massachusetts House of Representatives passed a bill that would do irreparable harm to the exercise of the Second Amendment in Massachusetts: H.4139, An Act Modernizing Firearm Laws.
A 123-page monstrosity, the bill takes direct aim at responsible gun owners in the state and does absolutely nothing to address the mental health crisis or actual violent crime.
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts already has some of the harshest gun laws in the country; there is a strict licensing scheme, limits on magazines, and limits on the types of guns that can be possessed. This bill, if it passes through the Senate and is signed by Gov. Maura Healey, would go even further.
There are provisions in the bill that would change the current ban of so-called “assault weapons” into what is essentially a ban of all semi-automatic long guns by means of a massive list of newly banned guns as well as a single-feature “assault-style firearms” test. Additionally, the bill takes aim at the Heller and Bruen decisions by attempting to use statute to define a “common long gun” as any long gun that “does not produce semi-automatic or automatic fire.”
In addition to this semi-automatic shotgun and rifle ban, the bill also includes a full, mandatory registry, expands the list of so-called “prohibited places,” creates a separate pepper spray permit for 15 to 18-year-old persons-with parental consent, and bans the purchase and possession of any semi-automatic firearm for anyone under 21 years old.
Training requirements would also be increased by the bill. Live-fire training would be mandatory along with an inflated curriculum of training subjects. To read more about the bill, you can find GOAL’s summary at GOAL.org.
Massachusetts was also one of the first states to jump on the so-called “red flag law” bandwagon. Referred to as “Extreme Risk Protection Orders” (ERPOs) in the Commonwealth, the law currently allows police or certain people who have a prior relationship with a gun owner to file a petition with the court to have their guns taken away if they “pose a risk of physically hurting themselves or others”-usually without the gun owner’s knowledge. The gun owner would then have to surrender all of their firearms, ammunition and licenses.
H.4139 would greatly expand the list of who can file a petition against a gun owner and includes, among others, a licensed physician, registered nurse, counselors, therapists, social workers, school principals and even employers. Even in this new version, the law would only apply to gun owners, so others who pose risks to society would not be subject to any kind of process like this-it is all about the guns.
That is all this bill is about: the guns. There is nothing in this bill to address violent crime or mental health issues, there are only punitive measures that would hurt the responsible gun owners of the Commonwealth. Time and time again the gun grabbers have proven that they do not actually care about the root cause of violence in this country, they only use it as an excuse to target the one fundamental right they can’t stand.
Mike Harris is the director of Public Policy for the Massachusetts Gun Owners’ Action League.
