Healey plans to use executive power to push back against attempt to suspend massive gun laws – Lowell Sun

Gov. Maura Healey plans to use her executive authority on Wednesday to declare a gun bill she signed in July an emergency bill, effectively invalidating an attempt by Second Amendment rights groups to suspend the measure before it takes effect in late October.

Healey’s anticipated actions, which her office confirmed Tuesday, put in limbo a campaign led by a Cape Cod gun store owner to collect nearly 50,000 signatures from registered voters in Massachusetts by Oct. 9 to delay gun reform until after the election. 2026.

Toby Leary, owner of Cape Cod Gun Works and chairwoman of the Civil Rights Coalition, said Healey intended to demonstrate “pure tyranny at its finest” and threatened to close 400 gun stores with her signature.

“She… is literally interfering with the ongoing democratic process, the constitutional process. She had two months to do it,” Leary told the Herald on Tuesday morning. “If this was such an urgent need and such a serious threat to this country, why did they wait until they knew our campaign would be successful? This is merely an attempt to silence the voices of the 85,000 people who will be involved in this campaign.”

In a statement to the Herald, a spokesman for Healey said the governor plans to sign the emergency language on Wednesday, which would make the law go into effect immediately rather than Oct. 23 and “will ensure that the application of the act is not suspended by a referendum petition.”

“This gun safety law prohibits ghost guns, strengthens the extreme risk protection order statute to keep guns out of the hands of people who pose a danger to themselves or others, and invests in violence prevention programs. It is important that these measures come into force without delay,” Healey said.

Gun rights groups can still collect just over 37,000 signatures to put a question to voters in 2026 asking them to repeal the gun law.

Leary said his coalition — which also includes the local chapter of the National Rifle Association, other gun stores and sports clubs — has already crossed that threshold. But he said organizers were still considering whether to challenge Healey’s emergency declaration in court.

“We can just file for a preliminary injunction because this law is so unconstitutional,” he said. “It will not be difficult to show how people will be irreparably harmed, and for those reasons we can seek a preliminary injunction.”

The law prohibits people under 21 from owning semi-automatic rifles and shotguns, targets so-called “ghost weapons” by requiring all firearms to be serialized, and also bans technology that transforms semi-automatic weapons into fully automatic weapons.

The bill also introduces a number of new training and licensing requirements, although the Legislature last month took steps to delay the implementation date. Lawmakers said the wording of the bill signed by Healey over the summer was incorrect and needed to be corrected.

Beacon Hill Democrats, who authored and organized the passage proposal, argue it is intended to keep everyone in the state safe, including gun owners, law enforcement, school children and ordinary adults.

But members of the gun community say it goes too far and state agencies won’t be ready to address its immediate implementation.

“The systems are not in place and no one understands what the hell they are supposed to do,” said Jim Wallace, executive director of the local Gun Owners Activities League, an NRA affiliate. “It’s a mess and it’s going to be a mess, and even the police have no idea what they’re supposed to do or enforce.”

Republicans are also attacking Healey.

“By invoking the emergency preamble to this flawed anti-gun bill, Governor Healey is intentionally undermining the democratic process and trampling on citizens’ right to petition,” MassGOP Chairwoman Amy Carnevale said in a statement to the Herald.

Critics of the law have also filed at least one federal lawsuit challenging the law’s firearms licensing provisions, including concealed carry permit and firearms identification card requirements.

The National Rifle Association also said it plans to file a separate lawsuit challenging one of the “most egregious and freedom-limiting laws in the history of the Commonwealth.”

“We are grateful to the bipartisan group of lawmakers who opposed gun registries and a ban on commonly owned firearms and standard magazines. The NRA will challenge this bill to restore the rights guaranteed to Bay Staters by the U.S. Constitution,” the organization said in a statement released over the summer.

Originally published: October 1, 2024 at 12:35 pm