Demonstrators at a pro-gun rally held indicators as they made their technique to the State Home in Boston, Massachusetts, on September 27, 2023. JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
By STEVE LeBLANC, Related Press
BOSTON (AP) — The Massachusetts Home authorized a sweeping gun invoice Wednesday geared toward tightening firearm legal guidelines, cracking down on unregistered “ghost weapons” and strengthening the state’s assault-style weapons ban.
The invoice, which handed on a 120-38 vote, would additionally prohibit people from carrying a gun into an individual’s dwelling with out their permission and require key gun elements to be serialized and registered with the state.
The 125-page invoice — a precedence for Democratic Massachusetts Home Speaker Ronald Mariano — is partially a response to a 2022 U.S. Supreme Courtroom ruling that U.S. residents have a proper to hold firearms in public for self-defense.
The proposal would create new legal guidelines that bar firing weapons at or close to properties and outlaw carrying firearms whereas intoxicated. It will additionally prohibit carrying firearms in colleges, polling locations and authorities buildings.
The invoice expands the state’s ban on assault weapons by prohibiting new purchases of AR-15-style weapons. It will additionally ban somebody from turning a authorized firearm into an unlawful automated weapon.
The proposal consists of an enhanced system to trace firearms utilized in crimes to assist curb the circulate of unlawful weapons into the state. It will additionally modernize the prevailing firearm registration system whereas rising the supply of firearm knowledge for tutorial and coverage use, lawmakers stated.
Massachusetts, which already has powerful gun legal guidelines, had the bottom charge of gun deaths within the nation, at 3.4 deaths per 100,000 folks in 2021, in comparison with Mississippi, which had the very best charge, at 33.9 deaths per 100,000 folks, in line with the latest statistics listed on the web site for the U.S. Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention.
The state Senate has but to launch its model of a gun invoice. It is going to be as much as each Democratic-led chambers to hammer out a single invoice to ship to Democratic Gov. Maura Healey’s desk for her signature earlier than it could grow to be regulation.
Gun house owners against the invoice say the measures outlined within the laws do extra to focus on gun house owners than to cut back crime.
“All of it goes in opposition to us, the lawful folks. There’s nothing in there that goes after the criminals,” stated Jim Wallace, govt director of the Gun House owners’ Motion League.
Wallace additionally stated the invoice is an overreaction to final yr’s Supreme Courtroom determination.
“This can be a tantrum. This can be a flat-out tantrum,” he stated.
Supporters of the invoice say it’ll assist deal with holes within the state’s gun legal guidelines, whereas additionally responding to the Supreme Courtroom ruling.
One response is a measure within the invoice that may prohibit weapons in secure areas equivalent to colleges, polling locations and the Statehouse, stated Jennifer Robinson of the Massachusetts chapter of Mothers Demand Motion for Gun Sense in America.
Robinson stated the invoice additionally contained what she referred to as commonsense steps.
“We imagine that when you’re going to have a license for a gun, it is best to have dwell hearth coaching, very like when you’re going to drive a automotive, we don’t simply throw the keys at you and stroll away,” she stated. She additionally pointed to a piece of the invoice that may switch to the state police the duty of inspecting gun sellers.
