In an appalling but unsurprising demonstration of bad faith, the Massachusetts Legislature has launched the opening salvoes of the most blatant attack on citizens' rights in decades.
HD.4420, a proposed draft bill filed by Rep. Michael Day (D-31st Middlesex) comes in the wake of the so-called Firearms Listening Tour, which wrapped up a mere two weeks ago. The tour, ostensibly an attempt by the legislature to get out and poll public sentiment on the current state of Massachusetts gun law, was set in motion by House Speaker Ron Mariano (D-3rd Norfolk), who assigned Day the task of traveling the state and putting panels together to discuss firearms-related topics with the public. The tour's resulting public feedback was supposed to provide information for a subsequent "top-down" review of current MA gun law, allowing the legislature to propose updates.
It's clear to anyone watching that the proposed bill, stretching to 140 pages in length and countless cross-references to other parts of the Mass General Laws, cannot possibly have been written in the scant time since the end of the listening lour, with any sort of rational consideration. The only possible conclusion, then, is that the legislature wrote what they wanted to do, then fabricated the listening tour as cover for what they going to do anyway.
The tour is revealed to be, and has been from the beginning, a sham.
Massachusetts gun law has been in the crosshairs since the US Supreme Court shot down certain provisions of state gun laws as unconstitutional, such as license restrictions, in the landmark case NYSRPA v. Bruen, decided almost exactly one year ago. MA legislators and then-Attorney General-now-Governor Maura Healey have pushed back hard, claiming that such restrictions increase safety, despite the mountains of evidence to the contrary.
Turning to the current bill, it's difficult to distill everything proposed into a simple list, but some of the more egregious items that stand out include:
Single-feature assault weapons test:
Currently on the books is a features test which comprises a comparison to the Federal Assault Weapons Ban (which was repealed by sunsetting in 2004), along with a two-step feature test. Under this new proposal ANY semi-automatic rifle which has ANY supposedly dangerous features (such as a simple foregrip) are considered assault weapons.
Expansions of named guns which are considered assault weapons:
Massachusetts mirrors the now-defunct federal AWB when it comes to named guns. This proposal massively expands the list of named guns to include many which are currently in common use by thousands of Massachusetts residents.
Firearms and feeding device registry:
Massachusetts currently does not have a firearms registry, but rather a "transaction registry," meaning that, generally speaking, acquisitions and dispositions of guns must be reported to the state. The proposed bill enacts a complete registry, such that ALL guns possessed in the state must be registered with the government. Also, straining the limits of credibility and practicality, this bill proposes that all detachable feeding devices must be serialized and registered with the state, a move not seen even in some of the most egregious of anti-2A states today. The proposal would include the mandated reporting to the state of any lost or destroyed magazines.
Expansion of prohibited places:
Residents of Massachusetts who possess a License to Carry have been subjected to a thorough multi-agency state and federal background check. Current MA law allows carry in all but a few locations, such as schools, MassPort property, and courthouses, along with federal restrictions such as federal buildings and post offices. This new proposal would expand the definition of prohibited places to include ALL public, commercial, and private property by default, unless the property owner explicitly posts a sign stating that firearms are welcome.
Mandatory reporting to the state of any modifications:
Things such as adding optics, replacing a trigger, grip panels, or any other modification or addition of new parts to a gun would require reporting those changes to the state.
These are just some highlights, but there's much more that will be teased out in the coming days. Massachusetts' method of amending General Laws entails a lot of "strike out word X in line Y and replace with this other word referenced in Section Z, etc." so the process is pretty opaque to the average citizen - one might argue it's opaque by design.
One group who makes it their job to understand all of this is Massachusetts' pro-2A civil liberties organization, Gun Owners' Action League. Within moments of the proposed bill's release, GOAL had a statement on social media decrying the bill as the "Lawful Citizens Imprisonment Bill." Given the fact that all of the proposals in the bill would only affect the law-abiding citizens of Massachusetts (there is, for example, no provision for increasing criminal penalties for such things as robbery or murder with a firearm), it's hard to disagree with GOAL's characterization. GOAL has started a page on their website for tracking the changes proposed in the bill and is updating as new information comes to light.
“The proposed legislation is an abhorrent anti-civil rights effort. No community in Massachusetts faces this kind of intentional bigotry and oppression from the State Government! It is simply a post Bruen tantrum, very similar to Governor Wallace after Brown v. Board of Education.” Jim Wallace, Executive Director Gun Owners Action League
Since the proposed bill was only just filed, it's important to remember that this is a process, and the legislature has a number of steps they must go through before any proposed bill passes.
Given the timing of this, however, and the fact that it came so quickly after the conclusion of the listening tour, this bill reeks of backroom deals and pre-planned political maneuvering. The bill, even before receiving a permanent bill number, and within 24 hours of submission, has already been rushed through House Rules, has cleared the Joint Rules Committee and was sent to the Joint Committee on the Judiciary for review... the committee that Day himself chairs. It's clear that this bill is being forced-marched through the legislature without any meaningful debate or opposition, as quickly as possible.
The way-out-of-reality nature of some of the provisions may be an attempt to move the Overton window... by proposing far-out restrictions, the limits of what is considered "acceptable" government policy gets shifted in that direction. Even if some of the more asinine restrictions get removed before passage, there is still plenty of meat on the bone for proponents of gun control to be happy about.
There is also the make-up of the current General Court (Mass-speak for the state legislature) to think of. Massachusetts Democrats are currently enjoying their largest legislative hyper-majority in decades. The state is historically given to electing nominally Republican governors to counterbalance the Democratic legislature, but that's not the case now: former Attorney General Maura Healey, widely known and derided for her extralegal and unilateral redefinition of Massachusetts' Assault Weapons Ban in 2016, is now the governor, meaning that Democrats hold unassailable majorities in all branches of state government.
What does this mean? It's hard to say definitively, but it seems clear that the Massachusetts legislature is positioning itself to take a massive leap backward in terms of the Constitutional rights of its citizens. More to come...
