A Cape Cod gun store operator is attempting to start a mad dash to obtain tens of thousands of names by early October to suspend Massachusetts’s strict new, broad-ranging gun laws while an efforts to reform them moves ahead.
Critics of the laws, which Gov. Maura Healey , signed in July, now took the , primary step to eradicate it , from the government’s books earlier this month but today face an Oct. 9 deadline to submit more than 49, 000 signatures to local election officials to place the statute on hold and place a referendum question on the November 2026 ballot.
The Civil Rights Coalition, a party that Beacon Hill Democrats have argued is intended to keep the public safer, but its co-founder Toby Leary filed paperwork with the country’s campaign finance office on Monday to set up the organization. The move, which the group claims is intended to keep the public safe, poses a number of hiccups to ownership, is a process that the state’s campaign finance office has been working on for years.
Leary claimed in an interview with the Herald that the law is an overreach of state government’s authority and an infringement of Second Amendment rights.
He said the , coalition , he is heading up is prepared to tap a network of hundreds of gun stores, firearms groups, and sportsmen’s clubs to amass the signatures necessary to temporarily shelve the statute.
” Gun rights are civil rights and it’s our belief that, just like other civil rights that have been hard fought in our country’s history, this is one worth fighting for”, he said. Every other civil right enumerated in our Bill of Rights could just as easily be taken away if you allow the right to keep and bear arms to be eroded.
But Gov. A spokesperson for Secretary of State William Galvin’s office said that Maura Healey could use a procedural tactic to “upend” the law by including an “emergency preamble” in the statute.
Healey has the option to add the “emergency” clause to the law at any time, even after opposition gather enough signatures to have the measure suspended. That move would immediately head off or void a voter-approved suspension, but still allow for a repeal campaign.
Healey’s representative for the organization did not specify whether the governor intended to declare the statute an “emergency” statute.
” Gov. She was pleased to sign the state’s most significant gun safety legislation in a decade, according to the spokesperson, who said in a statement.” She knows that Massachusetts ‘ strong gun laws save lives.
If Healey made the decision to include emergency language in the law, Leary claimed it would be a “really bad look.”
” It would be very interesting for the governor, who is a member of the Democratic Party, who decries the threat to democracy all the time, to actually thwart the democratic process”, Leary said.
The proposal Healey signed this summer prohibits people under the age of 21 from possessing semi-automatic rifles or shotguns, but those between the ages of 18 and 21 can still own and possess firearms with an identification card.
Additionally, the statute mandates that potential gun owners receive live training.
Democrats wrote into the law language taking aim at “ghost guns” by requiring the serialization of all firearms, including those that are made at home, and provisions creating penalties for the “possession, creation, and transfer” of all untraceable guns.
The law changed the definition of “machine gun” to include bump stocks, trigger cranks, Glock switches, and other modifications, now subject to legal penalties.
According to a , summary of the statute , prepared by Attorney General Andrea Campbell in response to the referendum effort, lawmakers also clarified how to determine whether a firearm is an “assault-style weapon” and the circumstances under which a person may continue to possess that type of gun and large capacity feeding devices they already own.
Rep. Michael Day, a Stoneham Democrat and the law’s chief architect, claimed that extremist groups were responsible for the repeal effort and that the statute was both constitutional and” sensible gun control.”
Day claimed that” a particularly serious discussion point” is not the fact that the law he helped write violates residents ‘ Second Amendment rights.
According to Day,” I think the laws we have and the law we just passed really do strike a balance between making sure responsible gun owners can carry as they see and making sure those who ca n’t do so responsibly do n’t have the means to do that,” according to Day.
Day did not specify whether he would support a group that opposed the repeal effort.
” Let’s wait and see. Initially, they said they were gonna get on the ballot in 2024. It sounds like that target has moved to 2026″, he said. ” Who knows if they’re going to turn in the signatures? Who knows if they’re really going to pursue this”?
Leary claimed to have received donations pledges from several gun stores in the state and has spoken with figures of national prominence. He declined to provide any names before any details were revealed.
He claimed that numerous gun clubs and stores have committed to giving more than$ 100 000 to the cause.
” I believe that we could quickly multiply that”, he said. ” It’s going to take every penny. We’re not fooled by the potential cost of this. It might actually be a very expensive campaign. The way it’s shaping up, it’s a sprint, not a marathon. We have a ticking deadline”.
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