As expected, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey has put pen to paper and officially signed a massive gun control bill into law. With many of its provisions set to take effect next Thursday, it won’t be long before lawful gun owners are impacted by the legislation.
According to the Gun Owners Action League’s analysis of the new law, the new training mandates for those seeking a License to Carry will kick in on August 1, even though the state police and a municipal police training committee have to come up with an entirely new training curriculum that includes injury and suicide prevention, disengagement tactics, a live-fire component, and completion of a written exam.
Existing LTC holders are grandfathered in and won’t have to go through the new training, but those applying for a LTC for the first time will be subjected to the new rules, which is likely to lead to a halt to LTC classes until the curriculum has been established. Another issue is range access. There are only a handful of ranges that are open to the public in the state, so finding a place to conduct the live-fire training is going to be a challenge for many firearm instructors who aren’t partnered with a range, even after the new curriculum has been put in place.
The new law also impacts many of the most popular firearms in the country. Massachusetts has already had an “assault weapons” ban in place for decades (one that was expanded by Healey through a formal opinion when she Attorney General), but according to GOAL, under the new law some lawful gun owners will be subjected to a complete ban on the possession of semi-automatic firearms.
Complete prohibition for FID card holder regardless of age. A holder of an FID card is prohibited from: owning, possessing, purchasing or transferring (including to retailers) rifles and shotguns that are large capacity or semi-automatic (even rimfire).
• As for LTC holders, the new semi-automatic laws are very expansive and there are several sections that must be referenced in order to determine what is banned and who is banned from possessing them.
• The new laws also appear to give full authority to the Secretary of EOPSS to amend the rosters for any and all firearms including semi-automatic firearms. We won’t know what will be “approved” or banned for quite some time.
The state of Massachusetts has a two-tiered licensing process for gun owners. If you want to possess and/or carry a handgun, you must have a Licence to Carry, while Firearms ID cards are required for the purchase, possession, and transportation of long guns. H. 4885 essentially bans all semi-automatic long guns in the state, even rimfire models, for FID holders, and as GOAL notes, those with an LTC are going to be subject to all kinds of new restrictions as well.
GOAL’s executive director Jim Wallace has described the state’s latest attack on the right to keep and bear arms as a “tantrum” thrown by lawmakers in response to the Supreme Court’s decision in Bruen, and I think that’s a pretty apt description. I expect that we’ll see the first lawsuits filed against the “Lawful Citizens Imprisonment Act” at some point next week, along with a request for an injunction blocking enforcement of the law while litigation continues and until the law is overturned.
The issues highlighted above are just a few of the problems inherent in the new law, so I encourage you to check out GOAL’s FAQ and initial summary of H. 4885 to learn more about the infringements that have been foisted on Massachusetts gun owners. If gun control activists get their wish, the unfunded mandates and unconstitutional provisions will soon be exported to other states around the country, so even if you’re not a Massachusetts resident you should be deeply concerned about the state’s assault on the Second Amendment.
