Last October, the MA House voted on a gun safety bill, and then the MA Senate did in February. After many months in Conference Committee, the House and Senate finally came to a consensus on a bill.
The House and Senate voted last Thursday to pass it, 35 to 5 in the Senate and 124 to 33 in the House.
Governor Healey signed the bill yesterday.
Here’s what the bill does (credit to the Mass Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence for all their advocacy and for the write-up that part of the following is derived from):
Data Collection
- Directs the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security (EOPSS) to examine firearm purchasing patterns as they relate to guns used in connection with a crime, to understand the ways that bulk firearm purchasing impacts gun crime.
- Directs the Department of Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) to create a publicly available and quarterly updated dashboard with anonymized data on firearm crimes, firearm licensing, and firearm purchasing patterns. The dashboard is to be updated quarterly.
Licensing
- Consolidates and simplifies existing licensing statutes to be more consistent and streamlined.
- Raises the age at which an individual can own a semi-automatic rifle from 18 to 21.
Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERPO)
- Adds school administrators and licensed healthcare providers, including mental health clinicians, to the list of individuals eligible to petition the court for these petitions to remove firearms from individuals deemed at risk of hurting themselves or others.
- Allows for a pre-emptive ERPO to be filed against an individual who may not yet have a firearms license, preventing them from obtaining one for a set period of time.
Training Requirements
- Requires the State Police to develop a new training curriculum and standardized test for applicants for a license to carry or a firearm identification card.
Ghost Guns
- Modifies the definition of a firearm to include the key components of a firearm that are used to assemble a ghost gun, and requires that all firearms are serialized, including those that are homemade.
- Establishes a process for serializing homemade firearms.
Semiautomatic/Automatic Weapons
- Imposes strict penalties for the possession of machine gun conversion devices, such as Glock switches.
- Expands the definition of “assault weapons” to include known assault weapons and other weapons that function like them.
- Prohibits possession, transfer, or sale of “assault-style” firearms or large-capacity feeding devices.
Community Violence Prevention
- Establishes a commission to examine the way community violence prevention services in the Commonwealth are funded.
Sensitive Spaces
- Prohibits the possession of firearms by non-law-enforcement people at schools, polling locations, and government buildings
