Massachusetts gun owners are hoping to undo the state’s latest package of gun control laws at the ballot box this November, and their efforts appear to be making some foes of the Second Amendment awfully nervous.
Governor Maura Healey joined other supporters of the law at the Boston Teachers Union hall on Sunday for a “Yes on 9” rally, and in her remarks claimed the laws “are working” and that they’re “about protecting communities and protecting public safety.”
The laws may be working to reduce legal gun ownership, but as a recent case out of Boston shows, they’re not increasing public safety. Last Wednesday police arrested two individual fleeing the scene of a shooting, and discovered a FN Five-Seven firearm with an obliterated serial number after the motorcycle the suspects were riding crashed. Police arrested a 20-year-old and a 17-year-old on a variety of charges.
The teen suspect was charged with assault and battery with a firearm, assault with a dangerous weapon, carrying a loaded firearm without a license (third offense), possession of ammunition without an FID card, possession of a large capacity firearm, discharging a firearm within 500 feet of a building, possession with intent to distribute a Class B drug, and resisting arrest.
This is the 17-year-old’s third offense for illegally carrying a gun. If Chapter 135 were really the public safety initiative that Healey and supporters claim it is, then why does it allow individuals like this guy to be repeatedly arrested and released?
AFT president Jessica Tang said Sunday advocates need to “counter the disinformation and unethical tactics that the gun lobby is using,” stating that “this question is not about creating new laws; it’s about upholding the evidence-based ones that are already working.”
Tang also said the state has “consistently had one of the lowest gun death rates in the nation” and cited data after the most recent gun law showing gun violence drops of 20% in Springfield, 16% in Chelsea and 13% in Lynn.
Yeah, and homicides have declined by 36 percent in Birmingham, Alabama; 43 percent in Little Rock, Arkansas; and 37.5 percent in Miami, Florida this year. Not only are those three cities located in states that haven’t passed any new gun control laws, they’re in states with permitless carry laws already in place.
And what “disinformation and unethical tactics” is Tang talking about? It’s not inaccurate to remind folks that, while criminals can still easily get their hands on a gun, the state has made it even more difficult for lawful citizens to do so by imposing new requirements for those applying for a License to Carry (which is also required to keep a handgun in the home). It’s not unethical to highlight cases of lawful gun owners being charged with felonies, only to see those charges dropped by judges because they’ve actually committed no crime.
It’s the supporters of Question 9 who are the ones putting out disinformation by claiming Chapter 135 is having some incredible impact on violent crime across the state. Even if residents of one of the most liberal states in the country support various aspects of Chapter 135, like prohibiting unserialized firearms or expanding who can file for an Extreme Risk Protection Order, Chapter 135 contains so many problems that it should be scrapped in its entirety. If anti-gun Democrats like Maura Healey really want to make the public safer, they’ll push for laws that will do something about teenagers repeatedly caught with guns they’re not allowed to possess instead of trying to criminalize our fundamental right to keep and bear arms.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their extreme gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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