In February, I wrote to you after the Senate passed its version of a comprehensive gun safety bill, S.2572 — An Act to sensibly address firearm violence through effective reform, also called the SAFER Act. I voted Yes on this legislation.
Once the Senate passed its version of the bill, a Conference Committee was convened with members from the House and the Senate to reconcile differences between the versions of the legislation passed by the two branches.
On July 17, the Conference Committee reached an agreement on a compromise version of the bill. You can read the updated legislation here. This final version of the legislation was supported by the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association.
On July 18, the Senate and the House voted to send the Conference Committee bill to the Governor’s desk for her signature.
On July 25, Governor Healey signed the bill into law.
I heard from many of you about this legislation in the weeks and months leading up to the Senate’s debate in February. As part of my work on this legislation, driven by my interest in reducing gun violence, my team and I met with constituents and advocates including the Western Mass Police Chiefs, the Northwestern District Attorney’s office, sport shooting advocates, hunters, Moms Demand Action, Giffords Center for Violence Intervention, and Everytown for Gun Safety. I shared their advocacy with my colleagues.
Additionally, an amendment I filed to the Senate bill is retained in the final Conference Committee bill. Currently, if a firearms dealer is denied a permit to sell firearms in a given municipality, they can appeal that denial and the appeal is heard by the Colonel of the State Police. My amendment changes the law so that these appeals may now be heard by the court with regional jurisdiction. This court will be more familiar with the area in which the firearms dealer seeks to operate. This court also currently hears appeals when a License to Carry permit is denied, so this aligns the permitting process for firearms dealers with the process for a License to Carry.
Read on for a summary of the provisions in the Conference Committee’s final bill.
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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 buses, 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 the 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 the definition of firearm to include unfinished frames and receivers.
