Lawmakers in "The Bay State" last week agreed on a massive 111-page package of gun control measures that 2A advocates describe as radical.

The bill, H. 4885, was reported out of conference on July 18 in a 124 to 33 roll call, largely along party lines. A three-page summary of the bill details that it implements a variety of new arbitrary bans on certain firearms, creates a gun registry, enacts extreme training requirements for those seeking to possess legal firearms, and buries licensed gun dealers in the Commonwealth in new layers of bureaucratic red tape. 

"This agreement is the most significant gun safety legislation that Massachusetts has seen in a decade," said House Speaker Ronald J. Mariano (D-Quincy). "It is the culmination of a multi-year process that began once the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority issued their disastrous Bruen decision, after which the House began a comprehensive review of how that ruling would impact Massachusetts, and of the Commonwealth’s gun laws generally." 

As detailed by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the trade group for the American firearms industry, H. 4885 will require: 

• Full registration of ALL guns.
• Onerous licensing and administrative requirements on retailers. For example, all guns in inventory need to be registered with the state before they are even sold.
• Bans all legally owned magazines with a capacity greater than 10 rounds. Those standard-capacity magazines already lawfully owned would be barred from transfer.
• State police would create a roster of banned semi-automatic rifles and a database of all guns.
• Commissions to study “technologies” like microstamping that have already been proven by independent peer review research to be flawed and unreliable.
• Live-fire requirement despite the fact there are very few public ranges where this can be done.
• Publicly searchable in a database of all lawful firearm owners.
• Creates another government database to issue serial numbers for all firearms.
• Small, independent retailers will be saddled with inventory they can no longer sell.

"After nearly a year, in the state where the American Revolution began, Massachusetts legislators are seeking to rush through a 111-page bill that will do nothing to stem violence in the Commonwealth and will only create a bloated bureaucratic mess that impacts law-abiding gun owners," said Jake McGuigan, NSSF’s Government Relations – State Affairs Managing Director. "The legislature had the opportunity to do something truly special with a strong bill to address violence. Instead, the bill aims to suppress the exercise of the Second Amendment by implementing onerous training requirements just to purchase a firearm, bans all of the most commonly used guns in America, and implements a draconian gun registration scheme that criminals will ignore. It even makes it illegal for a 15-year-old Boy Scout to use a .22 caliber rifle to earn a merit badge. Judges continue to set free criminals in the Commonwealth while the legislature makes law-abiding citizens immediate felons."

Meanwhile, the Gun Owners Action League, a state 2A group, has been outspoken on the legislation. GOAL's Executive Director Jim Wallace, and Director of Education and Training Jon Green discussed the bill in the below hour-long podcast on plans for the fight ahead. "There is no area of Massachusetts gun law this does not touch," notes the podcast. 

The bill now heads to Everytown-backed Gov. Maura Healey, who as state AG, made repeated and often draconian "reinterpretations" of the Commonwealth's gun laws, a move which led to Smith & Wesson shifting its historic headquarters from Springfield, Massachusetts to more gun-friendly Tennessee. 

Banner image: The 7-foot-tall bronze Minute Man statue by Daniel Chester French, cast from old cannons, at the North Bridge, Minute Man National Park, Concord, Massachusetts. (Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)