In a move that demonstrated just how far Massachusetts is going to suppress Second Amendment freedoms, a gun rights organization has issued a travel advisory for the state.
The National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR) took action to protect its members and other gun owners against the state’s sweeping House Docket 4420. This proposal is nearly unprecedented in its scope and would push the state into banning firearms more than any other.
The 140-page bill is touted by gun rights opponents as “an act modernizing firearm laws,” but HD 4420 does far more than add window dressing to previous statutes. Instead, it targets law-abiding citizens in ways few if any other state has even dared.
For example, it institutes a comprehensive ban on so-called “assault weapons” that wipes away the right to own virtually any semiautomatic firearm. According to the NRA, this includes firearms already possessed by the public.
It bans all federally legally tax-stamped automatic weapons.
Concealed carry of firearms at private businesses is prohibited unless expressly permitted.
All firearms already owned must be registered. Further, all firearm magazines and feeding devices must be registered with no grandfathering. Every feeding device and magazine must have a serial number.
The minimum age for anyone to purchase or possess a semi-automatic shotgun or rifle would now be 21.
Stun guns would now be included in the definition of firearms.
And HD 4420 erects even more burdensome barriers between firearms dealers and conducting their legal business.
NAGR President Dudley Brown called it “probably the biggest and worst package of gun control regulation I have ever seen, and that’s saying a lot.” He added that it is “a ban on almost all guns, registration of every gun and magazine in the state (old and new) and a de facto ban on firearms carry are in the bill.”
That combination, Brown declared, put Massachusetts in the lead position of states that aggressively suppress constitutional gun rights. And that led directly to the travel advisory targeting gun owners in the state or considering traveling there.
The NAGR president continued. “Your gun rights and your freedom are at serious risk in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. If you live there you might want to pack your bags and if you are thinking of traveling there, you need to reconsider.”
A lawsuit through NAGR’s legal arm, Capen v. Healey, was filed last September opposing the state’s present ban on “assault weapons” and certain magazines. The filing is on solid legal ground, arguing that the state laws are unconstitutional under last year’s Bruen decision handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court.
This landmark ruling requires that gun control laws fit into the nation’s historical tradition as well as the text of the Second Amendment. What is blatantly obvious is that this massive package of overreaching statutes falls even further out of bounds from legal precedent.
Only in certain states, and they are becoming increasingly predictable, are these clearly unconstitutional laws being rammed through. Legislators are acting like spoiled children who are told they can no longer play with their favorite toy.
Instead of abiding by the clear direction given by the Supreme Court, these lawmakers are doubling down on their illegal stands, clenching their fists and stomping their feet in protest. It is the legal and grownup version of a childish temper tantrum.
There is little down that if HD 4420 is enacted as expected it will be vigorously challenged in court. A first-year law student could rip most of the provisions to shreds, and federal courts should have no trouble seeing the ruse for what it is — a middle finger at the Supreme Court.
