TWO DAYS AFTER Bay State voters upheld the 2024 gun reform law, architect state Sen. Cindy Creem basked in the preservation of the statute and pitched it as a public safety framework for other states to follow.
“Wow, that was quite a vote the other day, right?” the Newton Democrat said at a press conference Thursday afternoon. “Thank you, thank you to all of you that voted, all of my constituents, all over the state. It was a great vote. Remember, ‘yes’ is a good word.”
Nearly 67 percent of Bay Staters cast a “yes” vote to keep the law that installed new oversight of untraceable ghost guns and 3D-printed guns, bolstered the state’s red flag law that allows courts to take guns away from people who are a threat to themselves or others, updated the assault weapons ban, expanded data collection and reporting requirements, and more.
Senate President Karen Spilka praised “the smart voters of Massachusetts” and offered a compliment for the House, with fellow bill architect Rep. Michael Day joining the Senate gathering.
“We couldn’t do this alone. The House is great to work with,” Spilka said.
The Ashland Democrat emphasized the gun laws are “not about choosing between public safety and individual rights.”
“They are about recognizing that rights and responsibilities must go hand in hand,” Spilka said. “They must go together.”
Sens. Brendan Crighton, Jamie Eldridge, Adam Gomez, Robyn Kennedy, Vanna Howard, John Keenan, Becca Rausch, Lydia Edwards, Michael Brady, Jake Oliveira and Pat Jehlen joined the presser, as did Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan.
Communities around Greater Boston and eastern Mass. overwhelmingly voted to keep the law, unofficial results show.
“My hope is that the work we’ve done here will serve as a model for other states looking to strengthen their own gun safety laws and prevent senseless tragedies,” said Creem. “I’m thrilled that legislators in other states can look at these results on Tuesday’s vote and see there is overwhelming public support for commonsense gun safety laws.”
Since the law’s passage, Ryan said Middlesex County has managed to prosecute 17 people who were making and using ghost guns, as well as nine people who fired into homes while residents were inside.
Large swaths of southeastern, central and western Massachusetts voted to repeal the law, according to unofficial results. Municipalities where more than 65 percent of voters backed the repeal include Oakham, Russell, Phillipston, Granville, Savoy, Montgomery, Chester, Peru, Blandford, Monroe, and Florida.
Toby Leary, chair of the Civil Rights Coalition that pushed for repeal, said he was “not at all surprised” by the results but “disappointed that more Mass. residents aren’t concerned about assaults on their constitutional rights.”
“And frankly, maybe that was something we didn’t do a good job of spreading that message,” Leary told the News Service. “Like a lot of people don’t look at this as a constitutional issue — they look at it as just a, you know, a form of regulation.”
While the ballot campaign is over, Leary said there’s a handful of active legal challenges underway in Massachusetts and that others are being considered, including for data privacy issues related to a firearm registration portal online. He said gun rights advocates are also keeping tabs on oral arguments next month in the Supreme Court, which will hear consolidated challenges on the constitutionality of bans on AR-15s and other semiautomatic rifles.
“I think they’ve already tipped their hand that you cannot ban firearms that are in common and ordinary use,” Leary said of the Supreme Court. “So that’s a huge problem for Massachusetts with their handgun roster and the so-called assault weapon ban.”
Spilka, asked if she’s concerned how the Supreme Court case could impact state law, said, “We’ll have to see what happens, but there’s lots of time in between, and we’ll have to see what the oral arguments are.”
Ruth Zakarin, who chaired the Yes on 9 for a Safe Massachusetts campaign, told the News Service that she is not “hugely concerned” by the complaints working their way through state courts.
“So far, everything has been decided that this law is sound and it is constitutional,” Zakarin said. “And so we obviously pay attention to the litigation, but I don’t have a specific worry.”
Gov. Maura Healey signed an emergency preamble in October 2024 to make the gun reform law take effect immediately, thwarting gun activists’ attempt to suspend it while the repeal effort played out.
Healey has yet to flex that same authority with the abortion law she signed in August, even as the Compassionate Care Coalition claims it has filed enough signatures to suspend the law as it eyes a referendum on the 2028 ballot. A Healey spokesperson did not answer a News Service question Thursday about whether the governor will attach the emergency preamble ahead of Secretary of State Bill Galvin’s office starting to certify coalition signatures after Friday’s deadline.
Under the constitution, the law is poised to take effect 90 days after Healey’s signature, or Sunday, November 8.
Day said Massachusetts must continue to implement the gun reform law “thoughtfully.”
“We have to make sure law enforcement has the tools and, more importantly, the training that it requests and needs,” the Stoneham Democrat said. “We have to support community-based violence prevention. We have to continue to evaluate what works and what we can do better across the spectrum.”
