Rep. Day Secures Passage of Firearm Safety Reform Bill

BOSTON –The Massachusetts Legislature passed a firearm safety reform bill that cracks down on the sale of ghost guns, strengthens the Commonwealth’s red flag laws, updates the definition of assault-style firearms, and limits the carrying of guns into polling places and government buildings while updating our current prohibition of guns in schools to include school transport.

“Today, as we consistently do in the area of firearm safety, we take the lead in making the Commonwealth a safer place to live by giving law enforcement the tools they need to go after ghost guns, keeping battlefield weapons out of our neighborhoods, and keeping our schools, homes, town halls and polling locations safe,” said Representative Michael S. Day (D-Stoneham), House Chair of the Joint Committee on the Judiciary. “While Washington is paralyzed by dysfunction that endangers Americans across the country, we in Massachusetts address our challenges directly and take the steps necessary to modernize our firearm laws to keep us safe.”

Following the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court’s Bruen decision, the Massachusetts Legislature acted quickly to patch areas in the Commonwealth’s framework governing the issuance of licenses to carry firearms, which were undone by the Supreme Court’s actions. The bill is a result of a comprehensive review of the Commonwealth’s gun laws, including a six month, eleven stop listening tour in which Representative Day traveled across the Commonwealth and participated in numerous meetings, including a public hearing, with a variety of stakeholders and members of the Legislature.

“Massachusetts is already a national leader in combating gun violence, but there is always more we can and must do to make our communities as safe as possible for all of our residents,” said State Senator Jason Lewis. “This comprehensive legislation, which was endorsed by the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association, was carefully crafted after hearing extensive public testimony and following many months of discussions with stakeholders such as local police chiefs and other law enforcement groups, the Attorney General, gun violence prevention advocates and experts, and gun rights groups, to focus on policies that will further reduce gun violence, including suicides, while respecting the rights of lawful gun owners in the Commonwealth.”

Major provisions of the bill include:

Stemming Illegal Firearm Flow. This bill provides tools for law enforcement to target illegal gun trafficking by including an enhanced tracing system to track firearms used in crimes, modernizing the existing firearm registration system, and increasing the availability of firearm data for academic and policy use. The bill also enhances requirements for reporting lost, stolen and surrendered firearms.

Protecting Communities from Gun Violence. The legislation criminalizes discharging firearms at or near dwellings. It also prohibits the carrying of firearms on school busses, polling places, and government buildings with an exemption for law enforcement.

Additionally, the bill standardizes training requirements for individuals seeking a license to carry and will now require live firearm training. The bill also expands the list of who may petition a court for an extreme risk protection order (ERPO) against a person who poses a risk of causing bodily injury to themselves or others beyond just household members and law enforcement, to include school administrators and medical professionals. It creates a special legislative commission to study and make recommendations to improve the Commonwealth’s funding structure for violence prevention services and begins the process of directing the Massachusetts Secretary of Health and Human Services to seek federal reimbursement for violence prevention programs.

Modernizing Massachusetts Firearm Laws. The bill ensures that Massachusetts laws remain in compliance with the Bruen decision and provides standardization to our laws and the process of obtaining a license to carry a firearm for responsible individuals. The legislation also updates how we define assault-style firearms and places new restrictions on large capacity feeding devices that are currently owned. It closes loopholes that allow the modification of legal firearms into illegal automatic weapons and provides a legacy clause so all firearms legally owned and registered in Massachusetts as of the effective date of the bill will continue to be legal and may be bought and sold within the state.

Between 2019 to 2021, the Boston Police Department alone saw a 280 percent increase in the number of untraceable ghost guns it recovered on the streets. The bill tackles this rise in untraceable guns by requiring the registration and serialization of frames and receivers and updates our definition of firearm to include unfinished frames and receivers.

After passing both chambers, Governor Healey signed, An Act modernizing firearm laws into law on Thursday afternoon.