Vern Evans
Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey plans to implement a wide-ranging gun law immediately today. The state’s Constitution provides for a campaign to prevent laws from taking effect until voters can weigh in by submitting enough signatures to place the law on a future ballot, however, this provision is void if the measure has an emergency preamble attached, which is exactly what Healey now plans to do.
Healy initially signed the law on July 25th and it was set to take effect on October 23rd. At an event in Somerville on Tuesday, Healey stated that she decided to approve emergency language for the gun law two months after signing it into law because, “this is just when we were able to process it and look through it, review the legislation.”
Suggesting this is simply when they could get around to it combined with the fact that Massachusetts already has one of the lowest rates of firearms violence in the country flies in the face of any legitimate move to attach an emergency preamble and isn’t fooling anyone.
Gun rights groups are still able to collect just over 37,000 signatures which will place a question before voters in 2026 asking them to repeal the gun law, but the damage will be done by then, which is Governor Healey’s deliberate intent.
Owner of Cape Cod Gun Works and chairman of the Civil Rights Coalition, Toby Leary says that Healey is set to demonstrate “pure tyranny at its finest” by threatening to put 400 gun stores out of business with a flick of her pen.
“She … is literally interfering with the democratic process that is unfolding, a constitutional process that is unfolding. She had two months to do this before…If it was such an immediate need and a dire threat to this state, why did they wait until they knew that we were going to be successful in our campaign? This is only an effort to silence the voices of the 85,000 people that will be involved in this campaign,” Leary told the Herald Tuesday morning.
The coalition includes local NRA affiliates, gun stores and sportsmen clubs across the state. According to Leary, they have cleared the signature threshold already, however, he states that organizers are considering a legal challenge to Healey’s emergency declaration in court.
“We might just seek a preliminary injunction because this law is so unconstitutional…It’s not going to be hard to show how people will be irreparably harmed, and we might seek a preliminary injunction for those reasons,” Leary said.
The law bans people under 21 from owning semiautomatic rifles or shotguns. It also takes aim at so-called “ghost guns,” requiring serialization of all firearms and bans technology that converts semiautomatic weapons to fire fully automatic, a provision suspiciously and likely intentionally left exceedingly vague by legal standards. The bill also implements a host of new training and licensing requirements to own and carry firearms in the state.
Opponents are also concerned that overarching provisions of the law will overwhelm state agencies causing them to be ill-equipped to deal with its immediate implementation.
“The systems aren’t in place, and nobody understands what the hell they’re supposed to be doing…It’s a mess, and it’s going to be a mess, and even the police officers have no clue what they’re supposed to do or what they’re supposed to enforce,” said Jim Wallace, executive director of the local NRA affiliate, Gun Owners Action League.
Governor Healey of Massachusetts is yet another Democrat official willing to eviscerate the rights of the people whose interests and liberties she is obligated to represent. She also joins many Democratic lawmakers in deliberate contempt of the Supreme Court of the United States of America, as such unconstitutional behavior against Second Amendment rights has been addressed at the highest levels.
“By invoking an emergency preamble to this flawed law targeting firearm ownership, Gov. Healey is deliberately subverting the democratic process and trampling on the people’s right to petition,” said Amy Carnevale, MassGOP Chair said in a statement to the Herald.
I’m sure there will be updates to this breaking situation as it continues to unfold.
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