New gun bill in Massachusetts signals significant shift in state’s firearm policies

The Massachusetts House approved a sweeping gun bill Wednesday aimed at tightening firearm laws, cracking down on unregistered “ghost guns” and strengthening the state’s assault-style weapons ban. The bill, which passed on a 120-38 vote, would also prohibit individuals from carrying a gun into a person’s home without their permission and require key gun components to be serialized and registered with the state.
The 125-page bill a priority for Democratic Massachusetts House Speaker Ronald Mariano is in part a response to a 2022 US Supreme Court ruling that US citizens have a right to carry firearms in public for self-defence. The proposal would create new laws that bar firing guns at or near homes and outlaw carrying firearms while intoxicated. It would also prohibit carrying firearms in schools, polling places and government buildings.
The bill expands the state’s ban on assault weapons by prohibiting new purchases of AR-15-style weapons. It would also ban someone from turning a legal firearm into an illegal automatic weapon. The proposal includes an enhanced system to track firearms used in crimes to help curb the flow of illegal guns into the state. It would also modernize the existing firearm registration system while increasing the availability of firearm data for academic and policy use, lawmakers said. Massachusetts, which already has tough gun laws, had the lowest rate of gun deaths in the country, at 3.4 deaths per 100,000 people in 2021, compared to Mississippi, which had the highest rate, at 33.9 deaths per 100,000 people, according to the most recent statistics listed on the website for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The state Senate has yet to release its version of a gun bill. It will be up to both Democratic-led chambers to hammer out a single bill to ship to Democratic Gov. Maura Healey’s desk for her signature before it can become law. Gun owners opposed to the bill say the measures outlined in the legislation do more to target gun owners than to reduce crime. “All of it goes against us, the
lawful people.