Last year, the right-wing US Supreme Court weakened states’ ability to pass strong gun safety laws by blocking New York’s handgun licensing law. At the end of last session, the MA Legislature passed legislation to ensure that MA’s gun laws would be compliant with the Supreme Court ruling, protecting them from legal challenge, but the situation also showed that the moment was ripe for revisiting how to strengthen MA’s gun laws overall.
Governor Deval Patrick signed a gun control omnibus package back in 2014, and an extreme risk protection order (ERPO), or “red flag,” bill was passed in 2018, allowing family members, housemates, and law enforcement officials to file temporary firearms restrictions in civil court. But there is more work to do.
As a result of impressive advocacy from the Massachusetts Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence, Moms Demand Action, and other groups, and the commitment of House Judiciary Chair Mike Day, the House passed a comprehensive gun violence prevention bill this Wednesday that continues MA’s leadership on this issue.
Among other steps, the bill does the following:
- Strengthens MA’s assault weapons ban by expanding it to cover more firearms
- Raises the age for possession of a semi-automatic long gun (rifle or shotgun) to 21
- Prohibits all machine gun conversion devices or devices that increase the rate of fire of firearms
- Cracks down on ghost guns by requiring that all firearms manufactured, assembled, possessed, purchased, or transferred into MA be serialized
- Prohibits firearms in government buildings, polling places, and educational institutions, including higher education, and prohibits firearms on private property without express permission or signage
- Expands the list of individuals eligible to file an extreme risk protection order (ERPO) to include licensed healthcare providers, school administrators, and employers
- Strengthens data collection on firearms and firearm crimes
- Establishes commissions to study the funding structure for community-based violence prevention services and the feasibility of microstamping (which imprints a unique identifier on bullet casings to help identify the gun used in specific incident) and smart gun technology (which includes various measures to ensure that only the rightful owner is using a gun, e.g., a thumb screen)
The final vote was 120 to 38.
Joining Republicans in voting against it were Democrats Shirley Arriaga (D-Chicopee), Brian Ashe (D-Longmeadow), Colleen Garry (D-Dracut), Pat Haddad (D-Somerset), Kathy LaNatra (D-Kingston), Christopher Markey (D-Dartmouth), Rady Mom (D-Lowell), David Robertson (D-Tewksbury), Aaron Saunders (D-Belchertown), Jeff Turco (D-Winthrop), and Jonathan Zlotnik (D-Gardner).
Democrats Pat Kearney (D-Scituate) and John Rogers (D-Norwood) were not present.
