thorin
NES Member
From a Politico Mass-specific email list I am on this morning:
FIRST IN PLAYBOOK: NEW GUN SAFETY PUSH — With the House budget debate now done, gun-safety advocates are prodding representatives to get moving on another priority issue: tightening the state’s firearms laws.
House Speaker Ron Mariano has been teeing up an omnibus gun-safety bill for this session ever since lawmakers rushed to retool the state’s gun rules last summer in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling that invalidated New York’s concealed-carry law and jeopardized Massachusetts’ laws.
Now the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence is sending a letter, shared first with Playbook, to top lawmakers and the governor laying out 10 ways they can toughen the state’s gun laws and beef up enforcement of existing ones.
Giffords is backing several bills already filed this session, including those that would crack down on the manufacture and sale of ghost guns and strengthen restrictions on carrying firearms in public. Another would help people who feel they’ve been harmed by firearms industry practices seek legal recourse.
Massachusetts has the sixth-strongest gun laws in the nation, according to Giffords’ annual scorecard. Yet "in recent years, it just hasn’t kept up with its peer states” like California and New Jersey “in responding to new challenges,” David Pucino, the group’s deputy chief counsel, told Playbook.
“But the thing that has us particularly optimistic that it’s a really great moment for Massachusetts to tackle this problem is because there’s such a strong advocate in the governor’s office,” Pucino said.
Gov. Maura Healey ramped up enforcement of the state’s assault-weapons ban as attorney general and has called to ban ghost guns as governor.
Now it’s up to the Legislature. House lawmakers are in the early stages of a statewide listening tour on gun issues that’s expected to ramp up in earnest over the next month. Each of the 13-plus stops has a different focus: hunting, street violence, suicide and, yes, ghost guns. But any steps lawmakers take are bound to face blowback from gun-rights groups.
“Everything is being considered right now,” state Rep. Michael Day, the co-chair of the Judiciary Committee and Mariano’s point person on gun legislation, told Playbook. “We’ll whittle it down and come down with a package that’s balanced and will make us safer.”
FIRST IN PLAYBOOK: NEW GUN SAFETY PUSH — With the House budget debate now done, gun-safety advocates are prodding representatives to get moving on another priority issue: tightening the state’s firearms laws.
House Speaker Ron Mariano has been teeing up an omnibus gun-safety bill for this session ever since lawmakers rushed to retool the state’s gun rules last summer in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling that invalidated New York’s concealed-carry law and jeopardized Massachusetts’ laws.
Now the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence is sending a letter, shared first with Playbook, to top lawmakers and the governor laying out 10 ways they can toughen the state’s gun laws and beef up enforcement of existing ones.
Giffords is backing several bills already filed this session, including those that would crack down on the manufacture and sale of ghost guns and strengthen restrictions on carrying firearms in public. Another would help people who feel they’ve been harmed by firearms industry practices seek legal recourse.
Massachusetts has the sixth-strongest gun laws in the nation, according to Giffords’ annual scorecard. Yet "in recent years, it just hasn’t kept up with its peer states” like California and New Jersey “in responding to new challenges,” David Pucino, the group’s deputy chief counsel, told Playbook.
“But the thing that has us particularly optimistic that it’s a really great moment for Massachusetts to tackle this problem is because there’s such a strong advocate in the governor’s office,” Pucino said.
Gov. Maura Healey ramped up enforcement of the state’s assault-weapons ban as attorney general and has called to ban ghost guns as governor.
Now it’s up to the Legislature. House lawmakers are in the early stages of a statewide listening tour on gun issues that’s expected to ramp up in earnest over the next month. Each of the 13-plus stops has a different focus: hunting, street violence, suicide and, yes, ghost guns. But any steps lawmakers take are bound to face blowback from gun-rights groups.
“Everything is being considered right now,” state Rep. Michael Day, the co-chair of the Judiciary Committee and Mariano’s point person on gun legislation, told Playbook. “We’ll whittle it down and come down with a package that’s balanced and will make us safer.”
![[laugh]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/012.gif "Laugh [laugh]")
