The law focuses on the root causes of gun violence to make all Massachusetts communities safer – and it is working.
Guns
Posted inCourts
How much leeway should officials have to deny gun licenses? SJC will decide.
Under the version of the state gun law in place at the time, as well as the sweeping 2024 gun law that retooled many of the state’s firearms laws, local licensing officials like police chiefs can consider a broad range of evidence to determine whether someone is suitable to be granted a license to carry.
Posted inCourts
SJC gives a Second Amendment win to Mass. lawmakers looking to license non-residents
Dual opinions from the high court signals that even under a tougher standard for determining the constitutionality of gun regulations recently set by the Supreme Court, Massachusetts’ firearms restrictions – some of the strictest in the nation – may rest on solid ground.
Posted inPolitics
Attorney General Andrea Campbell gears up for Trump round two
ONE WEEK AFTER the 2024 presidential election results, Attorney General Andrea Campbell has a staggering legal to-do list. “I think there are many out there doing the blame game or […]
Posted inCourts
Post-Bruen decision, everyone has to be a gun-law historian
The decision has opened almost all aspects of the state’s gun safety law regime to challenge and sent lawyers scrambling for history books. As recent Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decisions have shown, if a policy is not tied to a founding-era law or practice – a so-called historical analogue – it likely will not survive judicial scrutiny.
Posted inGuns
Gun owners say effort to repeal new gun law is moving forward
The referendum is one part of an effort to challenge the new law alongside at least two — and possibly more to come — lawsuits.
Posted inPolitics
Political Notebook: Teamsters throw new wrench into election
When a union declines to issue an endorsement at the national level, that typically frees up the locals to make their own picks. But the Teamsters president’s old local is staying quiet.
Posted inCourts
SJC rules Mass. switchblade ban unconstitutional
Second Amendment protections are “not limited to firearms,” Justice Serge Georges wrote for a unanimous court. “Like handguns, a person can carry a switchblade for offensive or defensive purposes in case of confrontation.”
Posted inGuns
Healey signs overhaul of state firearms law
The law sets new strategies for combating so-called ghost guns, expanding the law that allows a court to take guns away from someone considered a threat to themselves or others, and adding schools, polling places, and government buildings to the list of areas where state law forbids people from carrying firearms.
Posted inState Government
Budget, gun control bills near finish line
Lawmakers would need to ship the final budget to Healey by Sunday to guarantee their ability to push through any spending or policy ideas over the governor’s objection.
Posted inGuns
Rare public conference committee closes its doors
Sen. Joan Lovely of Salem, a member of the conference committee, said her family was stalked after her prior participation on a committee dealing with gun regulations and that person has resurfaced.
Posted inCriminal Justice
In remarkable start to 2024, Boston has had only 2 homicides this year
Boston has had just 2 homicides so far in 2024, and shootings are down 64 percent, an extraordinary start to the year in a city that already had low baseline rates of homicide and gun violence.
Posted inCriminal Justice
Controversial gang database credited in big federal bust
The Boston Police Department’s controversial gang database has faced widespread criticism for improperly profiling young Black and Hispanic males, but Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox said it played a crucial role in the recent federal bust of more than 40 people allegedly connected to a violent street gang.
Posted inCriminal Justice
Campbell hires gun control advocate to lead gun violence unit
Attorney General Andrea Campbell has tapped a rural litigator who previously worked for a gun control advocacy group to head up a new unit aimed at reducing gun violence.
Posted inOpinion
A Marine’s perspective on gun control
It’s clear now that there were many warning signs in the months leading up to the shooting in Lewiston, Maine that the shooter was a danger to the community and to himself, and many policy failures that allowed him to keep access to military-grade, semi-automatic rifles.
Posted inGuns
Gun legislation finally gets public hearing
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE BAY STATERS OF ALL STRIPES finally got the chance Tuesday to tell a panel of state representatives how they feel about a proposed overhaul of the […]
Posted inGuns
House leaders take hands-on approach with latest gun bill
GUN CONTROL legislation moved back on to Beacon Hill’s front burner on Thursday, as House leaders unveiled a revised bill that they hope to send directly to the Senate later […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
We spearheaded state’s 2014 gun law; new legislation can build on it
FOR NEARLY 10 years Massachusetts has been one of the states with the lowest rates of firearm deaths. Firearm deaths include homicides and suicides by firearm and firearm accidents. Most […]
Posted inGuns
Mariano says gun bill needs more work
HOUSE SPEAKER Ronald Mariano sent an email to all House members Monday night dropping his bid to gain quick passage of omnibus gun control legislation and instead pledging to address […]
Posted inGuns
Another House-Senate squabble, this time over gun legislation
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE WITH THE UNFINISHED fiscal 2024 budget, a road and bridge funding bill, and even their internal rules still tied up in slow-moving backroom negotiations, House and […]
Posted inGuns
Markey in DC, moms in Mass. push anti-gun violence efforts
ANOTHER YEAR, another mounting tally of mass shootings, and US Sen. Ed Markey was once again standing outside the Capitol arguing for funding to study gun violence. In 1996, a […]
Posted inOpinion
Youth success is the key to ending violence
IT’S BEEN HAPPENING almost every week, usually in one of the city’s disadvantaged neighborhoods. Another young man, and sometimes a boy still years from manhood, is shot and often loses […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
We must stop the cycle of gun violence in hard-hit Boston neighborhoods
WE WERE IN grade school when the first person we knew was murdered. Our 16-year-old cousin, Craig, was killed outside his house in Dorchester over a pair of sneakers. A […]
