The Massachusetts legislature just passed sweeping firearms reform legislation- a tossed salad of failed progressive interventions in the name of public safety.
According to GOAL [Gun Owners Action League], the bill “essentially bans all semi-automatic firearms”, or at least long guns, by adding a “shroud” to the two-feature test that’s used to determine if a particular firearm is considered an “assault weapon.”
Additionally, GOAL says Section 49 of the bill prohibits the possession of both “large capacity” magazines as well as semi-automatic firearms
The bill also bans the use of 3D printers or CNC machines to make a home-built gun unless the builder possesses a license to carry. But the legislation goes even further by banning the sale of 3D printers and CNC machines that are marketed “with the primary purpose” of building firearms.
The details of H.4885 were toiled over in relative secret for months and then dumped on the public, press, and politicians the evening before it was up for debate and a vote. It suggests they are not proud of it, for who does not parade their great leaps forward in anticipation of its arrival?
Transparency and public input, it seems, was their enemy, so there was none, or very little. There wasn’t much time for d bate, according to the reporting, and the sweeping reform was swept through boss houses like shit through a goose passing with wide margins as, of course, it would. It is Taxachusetts. Maskachusetts. The cradle of liberty, long since sacrificed to the progressive gods and the petty demons in the legislature who toil endlessly to undermine the Republic left in their care. Work that they must have known would immediately be challenged in court. Hogtied and left in legal li bo with a sippy cup filled with Jamesons as the case padded lazily through the justice system and ultimately overturned as unconstitutional (most of it, at least) based entirely on existing court precedent of which they are all aware.
The precedent they ignored, hoping perhaps for a sudden series of Supreme Court impeachments whose vacuum the Biden administration could fill with proper activist judges.
Why else waste the time and resources? The more likely answer is that they can’t help themselves, but more importantly, I suspect, are the provisions in the law that might survive a proper dressing down by a suitably capable judge with a rudimentary grasp of the Second Amendment. The magazine bands are arbitrary (and do nothing for public safety). The effective semi-auto weapons bans won’t survive. But what about the 3D printing and machining restrictions? Coupled with the obstacle course, which is the carry permit process in Bay State, might this get them a left foot in another door that they could then leverage to milk their ghost gun narratives?
It seems like a lot of waste and work for nothing, but I’m sure it’s hardly noticeable given the bloat and waste already present in the state. Four months and countless hours to craft legislation that will cost taxpayers millions more to defend it from legitimate legal challenges, but look how much time and energy was saved on public input and hearings.
So, yeah, they can’t help themselves, and that’s what it comes down to. It is also why the people in Massachusetts (and everywhere Democrats have power or vie for it) must come to grips with a popular maxim around these parts and others. Elections have consequences.
Every damn one of them.
