IT WAS BARELY 24 hours after a 14-year-old boy was gunned down at midday on a Roxbury street that the Boston City Council’s public safety committee convened a scheduled hearing […]
Guns
Posted inCourts, Drugs, Guns, Marijuana, State Government
Here’s what passed in marathon all-night legislative session
IN A MARATHON all night session, the Massachusetts Legislature finally finished many of their key priorities of the 2021-2022 legislative session, even as one key priority – tax reform – […]
Posted inGuns
House passes gun bill as amendment to bond legislation
THE MASSACHUSETTS House on Thursday quickly introduced and passed provisions tightening gun licensing standards in response to a recent US Supreme Court decision. With just 10 days to go before […]
Posted inOpinion
What the Supreme Court’s Second Amendment expansion means for gun safety
THE SUPREME COURT ruled last week, in New York Rifle and Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, that all “law-abiding” Americans have a right to carry a gun outside the home for self-defense. […]
Posted inOpinion
Gun rights threaten our civil rights
WE HAVE A RIGHT to free speech. It is perhaps our most celebrated right as Americans. But no one has the right to cry “fire” in a crowded theater. Every right […]
Posted inGuns
Congressional candidate Dean Tran indicted for theft
REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL candidate and former Fitchburg state senator Dean Tran was indicted Friday on charges that he stole a firearm from an elderly constituent, then misled investigators about the incident. […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Andrea Campbell wants to cap gun purchases, expand assault weapons ban
DEMOCRATIC ATTORNEY general candidate Andrea Campbell will release her first in-depth policy plan on Thursday – a gun violence prevention plan that includes a mix of enforcement of current laws […]
Posted inGuns
Mass. concealed-carry law threatened by Supreme Ct. decision
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE IN A RULING praised by gun rights advocates, the US Supreme Court on Thursday struck down New York’s concealed-carry gun licensing law with a decision that […]
Posted inArts and Culture
Healing families of those killed by gun violence
OUTSIDE OF TRAUMA ROOMS in hospitals around the country, there is a place that those in the medical field call the “quiet room.” According to Dr. Cornelia Griggs and Dr. […]
Posted inOpinion
Treat gun violence like the public health crisis it is
GUN VIOLENCE is a public health crisis. That’s what we continue to hear from healthcare leaders across Massachusetts and the nation. It may seem odd at first blush to use […]
Posted inOpinion
Uvalde comes nearly a decade after Newtown
NEARLY A DECADE AGO, on December 19, 2012, I shared this message with my college and our community about the worst school mass shooting in American history: It’s been a […]
Posted inGuns
Healey backs Mexico in case against gun manufacturers
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE RETURNING TO AN ISSUE that was at the center of her first campaign, Attorney General Maura Healey led a coalition of state prosecutors on Tuesday in […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
How Boston escaped the national spike in homicides
IT’S BEEN A grim companion to the death toll of COVID-19: While the virus has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans, homicide rates have also been soaring nationally. Homicides rose […]
Posted inGuns
Citing bills, Smith & Wesson moving HQ
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE FIREARM MANUFACTURER Smith & Wesson announced Thursday that it will move its headquarters and “significant elements of its operations” from Springfield to Maryville, Tenn., citing a […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
A call for mayoral candidates to address gun violence
A PROMINENT BLACK MINISTER who was part of the clergy-police partnership in the 1990s that helped stem gun violence in Boston is calling on the five mayoral candidates to offer […]
Posted inGuns
Insular thinking in Boston’s suburbs
AFTER AN EFFICIENT campaign by gun control proponents, the Newton City Council recently approved zoning changes to keep gun stores out of Newton. Yard signs that dotted lawns across the […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Changing the conversation on gun violence
THE MAY 26 San Jose murders, where a gunman opened fire at a public transit rail yard, killing nine people, further illustrate that this country’s epidemic of gun violence makes […]
Posted inOpinion
Actually, Mass. is willfully blind to mass murder, suicide
IN RESPONSE to an opinion piece published on May 8, 2021, by Jim Jordan, I would point out that Massachusetts does not have a “blind spot” when it comes to […]
Posted inOpinion
Mass. has blind spot when it comes to assault weapons
WHAT IS OUR moral responsibility as a Commonwealth for preventing the predictable loss of life from products manufactured in Massachusetts? Four state legislators — Democratic Reps. Marjorie Decker of Cambridge, Frank Moran […]
Posted inGun ownership
Our state gun laws need some updates
IN MASSACHUSETTS, we often congratulate ourselves for having strong gun laws. And we should. Evidence shows that there are fewer gun violence fatalities here than in states with laxer laws. […]
Posted inGuns
While Black Lives Matter rises, gang gunfire keeps claiming more lives
IT’S BECOME THE untenable backdrop to a national movement demanding a reckoning with systematic racism and centuries of sanctioned brutality against black Americans: While thousands have taken to the streets to […]
Posted inThe Download
While Black Lives Matter rises, gang gunfire keeps claiming more lives
It’s become the untenable backdrop to a national movement demanding a reckoning with systematic racism and centuries of sanctioned brutality against black Americans: While thousands have taken to the streets […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Mentoring kids — from a distance
EMMETT FOLGERT HAS gone with the flow for nearly 40 years at the Dorchester Youth Collaborative, a Fields Corner outpost that has helped generations of young people find a positive […]
Posted inOpinion
Still at it after 25 years
LIKE MANY PEOPLE, I remember where I was and what I was doing on December 14, 2012, when news broke that a shooter had taken the lives of 26 people, […]
