March 2024
MA May Soon Have a New Gun Control Law
Advocates working to reduce gun violence hope that by late July Massachusetts will have an updated set of laws to regulate firearms. This past October, the House passed a gun control bill. The Senate filed an amendment to the House’s bill February 1. Each chamber has appointed three members to a reconciliation committee to work through differences. The goal is for Gov. Maura Healey to sign a new gun control law before the end of this legislative session July 31.
Ruth Zakarin, CEO of Massachusetts Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence, says that her group, along with national partners, has worked with House and Senate leaders to advocate for an updated law. Zakarin says that some of these partners include Moms Demand Action, Everytown for Gun Safety, Brady, and Stop Handgun Violence.
These groups are responding to what her organization and others consider increased risks of gun violence. They also want to strengthen accountability and liability.
Zakarin says she spent many years working with survivors of domestic violence and is particularly concerned about the impact of guns on children. She is a parent and thinks about what it’s like for children to grow up with active shooter drills and to learn about successive school shootings.
“How do we stop the bloodshed from happening in the first place?” she asks. “This does not have to be our narrative. We can make this different. We know what the solutions are.”
Massachusetts already has some of the strictest laws in the U.S. to control guns and curb gun violence. Statistics from 2021 indicate that our state has the lowest rate of gun deaths in the country. For every 100,000 people in the Commonwealth, 3.4 die by a firearm. By comparison, the ratio in Mississippi is 33.9 to 100,000, earning that state the distinction of having the highest rate of gun deaths in the country.
We in the Commonwealth may have better-than-average gun control laws than in the rest of the states, but advocates and representatives here are nonetheless concerned. They have tried to mitigate against what they argue are significant risks from new technologies. So-called “ghost guns” are of particular concern.
Ghost guns can be created on 3-D printers. They don’t have serial numbers, can’t be tracked through purchase and sale records, and sidestep background checks. They are currently untraceable. It’s possible to purchase parts for such guns online and to assemble them privately.
An overwhelming majority of legislators in both chambers also want laws to identify and ban another dangerous technology, commonly called a “Glock switch,” “auto sear,” or “bump stock.” These terms describe a small piece of plastic that can be bought online or made using a 3-D printer. Gun users can jam the piece behind a trigger, turning a semi-automatic weapon into an automatic weapon (a machine gun). Automatic weapons are illegal in the Commonwealth, but there is not a specific law in the state outlawing bump stocks.
The U.S. Supreme Court recently heard arguments challenging the legality of the U.S. Justice Department’s 2018 ban of bump stocks. The ban came in the wake of a massacre in Las Vegas at an outdoor music festival in 2017, when a shooter using a bump stock fired more than a thousand bullets in ten minutes, killing 60 and wounding almost 500 others. The shooter caused the deadliest massacre by gun in the U.S. The Court will rule on the case this term.
Legislators in both chambers have tackled what they have identified as other important problems our current laws inadequately address, including “public carry” laws, “extreme risk protection orders” (also known as “red flag laws”), illegal marketing of guns to minors, insufficient industry accountability, and a need for expanded analysis of data relating to crimes committed by firearms.
The House overwhelmingly passed its bill, which is 125 pages, in a 128 to 38 vote. After hearing testimony from the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police in favor of proposed regulations, the Senate passed its 94-page bill, titled the SAFER Act, in a vote of 31 to 3.
Sen. Cynthia Stone Creem (D-Norfolk and Middlesex) led her legislative body to pass its amendment to the House’s bill. Richard Powell, Sen. Creem’s Chief of Staff, explains that the Senate and the House have each appointed three members to reconcile differences between the two bills. Given that there are significant differences in approaches, he explains, committee members will have their work cut out for them. The public will not be privy to the committee’s conversations.
Ruth Zakarin of Massachusetts Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence encourages NCJW MA advocates to educate ourselves about gun control reform here in the Commonwealth. We can sign up for fact sheets about Bill H.4139, write and email our senators and representatives, and attend information sessions. We can also contact committee members to encourage them to work towards crafting a bill their chambers will vote to pass. Follow links for: senators Cynthia Stone Creem (D-Norfolk and Middlesex), Joan B. Lovely (D-Second Essex), and Bruce E. Tarr (D-First Essex and Middlesex) and representatives Michael S. Day (D-31st Middlesex), Carlos González (D-10th Hampden), and Joseph D. McKenna (R-18th Worcester).
Powell says that we can log onto the mass.gov website to follow Bill H.4139, “An Act modernizing firearm laws.”
Additionally NCJW MA advocates can get involved with some of the non-profit groups working on gun control in the state: Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action, Stop Handgun Violence, and the Massachusetts Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence.