Assault Style Firearm Update – March 27, 2025

[pastera]

If it was purchased before 2016, then out was purchased before 8/2024.

So answer my question.

I answered your question
Was the item lawfully possessed (ownership is irrelevant) in Massachusetts on 8/1/2024?

On 8/12024 the old law was active therefore the stripped lower was simply a federally regulated part with no real relevance in Mass law.
Therefore unless you are a prohibited person, it was lawful on 8/1/2024 to possess a stripped AR lower.
On October 2nd, the new law became active and that lower instantly becomes a Massachusetts regulated part treated the same as an operational firearm - it under the law IS an "assault-style firearm" unless it also falls under the 7/20/2016 exclusion from copies or duplicates definition (which as a stripped lower it can not).
People are mixing up how the federal AWB worked with how the Mass ASF ban works.
The federal ban defined only items manufactured after a certain date to be assault weapons creating the concept of "pre-ban"
The Mass ASF defines ALL of the covered items as ASFs regardless of manufacturing date (2016 bs aside) and exempts from prohibition certain ASFs.
If an ASF defined item was in lawful possession on 8/1/2024 per the previous legal framework, then it is exempt from prohibition under the current framework.
Setting aside compliant rifles as having some unanswered questions of legality, there is essentially zero wiggle room to say that a stripped lower possessed by a dealer or LTC holder was anything but lawfully possessed. And an unfinished 80% was unquestionably lawful to possess by anyone INCLUDING an unlicensed individual or even prohibited person (but they were screwed on Oct 2nd)

 

[paul73]

Was the item lawfully possessed

according to new explanation, nothing purchased AFTER 2016 and BEFORE 8/1/24 was lawfully possessed. as they reclassified it to be an unlawful purchase.
post factum.

 

[HorizontalHunter]

Restraining orders are one thing.

Worrying about whether you can "legally" sell an 80% lower you bought on 1 August versus 31 July, or worrying you'll be arrested over that, is another.

Agreed, I stopped worrying about all this crap a long time ago. I just mind my business and live my life.

But when people are posting saying “if you don’t do anything wrong nothing will happen” that’s not entirely true. There are other ways it can come into your life without doing anything wrong. Yes the odds are low, very low, but they are not zero.

 

[MAJoe]

I answered your question
Was the item lawfully possessed (ownership is irrelevant) in Massachusetts on 8/1/2024?

On 8/12024 the old law was active therefore the stripped lower was simply a federally regulated part with no real relevance in Mass law.
Therefore unless you are a prohibited person, it was lawful on 8/1/2024 to possess a stripped AR lower.
On October 2nd, the new law became active and that lower instantly becomes a Massachusetts regulated part treated the same as an operational firearm - it under the law IS an "assault-style firearm" unless it also falls under the 7/20/2016 exclusion from copies or duplicates definition (which as a stripped lower it can not).
People are mixing up how the federal AWB worked with how the Mass ASF ban works.
The federal ban defined only items manufactured after a certain date to be assault weapons creating the concept of "pre-ban"
The Mass ASF defines ALL of the covered items as ASFs regardless of manufacturing date (2016 bs aside) and exempts from prohibition certain ASFs.
If an ASF defined item was in lawful possession on 8/1/2024 per the previous legal framework, then it is exempt from prohibition under the current framework.
Setting aside compliant rifles as having some unanswered questions of legality, there is essentially zero wiggle room to say that a stripped lower possessed by a dealer or LTC holder was anything but lawfully possessed. And an unfinished 80% was unquestionably lawful to possess by anyone INCLUDING an unlicensed individual or even prohibited person (but they were screwed on Oct 2nd)

Will Chevron also apply to the registration clause pointing at the new (not old FA10 requirement)? If so, that’ll screw a lot of people.

 

[rogersmithiii]

NH is awesome guys. Come on up. I’ve got 30+ silencers now with tax stamps getting approved in hours, all the “evil” feature rifles, SBRs up the ass, it’s awesome. No state income tax. No sales tax, surrounded by horse farms. All my neighbors own chickens and livestock. I’m 50 min from Boston. Very little traffic. Very few hood rats. It’s great. Every day is Christmas. It’s like 80% MA 20% FL.

You need to do your part and take in your share of hood denizens in your town. All of those boring NH folks create no excitement.

 

[pewpewpew]

Unless, of course, you "registered" a post-7/16 lower with a .22lr upper before 8/1, which Healy's edict explicitly stated was not a copy or duplicate.
View attachment 980075

Granted, just about all of this is guardhouse lawyer BS.

I was curious about this so I went and read the letter. It goes on to say that something can still fail on the features test even if it is exempted from the Copies & Duplicates designation.

I suppose someone who had either a non-compliant, or something not allowed (in the state's eyes) could have just broken it down to not-a-gun level on 8/1 and thus be grandfathered in?

It's just so much stupid legal nonsense with correspondingly stupid contrived loophole scenarios.

Makes my head spin.

 

[MAJoe]

I was curious about this so I went and read the letter. It goes on to say that something can still fail on the features test even if it is exempted from the Copies & Duplicates designation.

I suppose someone who had either a non-compliant, or something not allowed (in the state's eyes) could have just broken it down to not-a-gun level on 8/1 and thus be grandfathered in?

It's just so much stupid legal nonsense with correspondingly stupid contrived loophole scenarios.

Makes my head spin.

I THINK what they’re trying to say is that if you didn’t abide by the old law features (like, had a flash hider on your AR) then you aren’t grandfathered because it wasn’t lawful. Since the clause is on 8/1, not prior to that date, it would seem from a strict reading it would matter what config it was in on that date.

There is a note in GOAL’s post that makes it seem you can’t modify it now that it is grandfathered even though nothing in the law says that.