Under Massachusetts' new gun safety law, some students who take current basic firearms courses may not qualify for a license to carry.
The law changed the requirements taught in those courses, and the guidance is still being written by the state police and others. The law requires classes to now teach disengagement and harm-reduction and include live-fire training.
Lee Laster, a retired police officer who has taught firearms safety in Montague for more than two decades.
"I don't want just something thrown together to cover their butt. I want something that's going to reach people. To let them know that, 'Hey! Suicide is a real thing and if you know someone or you [are] feeling that way, guess what? You're not alone, there's help for you, here're some numbers, here's some people you can talk to.' That's what we need. We need resources ... We need a list of people who are trained when a person is in crisis," Laster said.
The state's firearms records bureau sent a letter last month to instructors, saying not all classes offered after August 1 will comply with the new license requirements. Officials are working toward an October deadline to update the guidance for firearms instruction.
Effort to repeal the law
Gun owners in Massachusetts have taken the first step toward putting before voters a proposal to repeal the firearms law. A referendum petition was submitted to the state election division with the signatures of 10 registered voters. It is the first step in a process that could land the question on the 2026 ballot.
Among its many provisions, the 82-page law includes new strategies for combating untraceable "ghost guns," expands the "red flag" law that allows a court to take guns away from someone considered a threat to themselves or others, and adds schools, polling places and government buildings to the list of areas where state law explicitly forbids people from carrying firearms.
The petitioners are not only seeking to repeal the law; they want to suspend it until the referendum can appear on a statewide ballot.
A spokeswoman for Secretary of State William Galvin confirmed the petition's filing and said that the attorney general’s office has been asked to prepare a summary for the referendum petitions.
Once the petition comes back from the AG’s office, the elections division will have 14 days to provide printed petitions to the petitioners.
Petitioners will need to file more than 49,000 signatures if they want to suspend the law upon the filing of the petitions, and can’t suspend the law if the governor adds an emergency preamble, according to the elections division. Without suspension, they need at least 37,287 signatures to place the question on the state ballot.
Signed petitions would be due to local clerks by October 9 and with the state elections division by October 23. The timeframe points to a 2026 ballot question, since signed petitions would be needed by September 6 to qualify a question for the 2024 ballot.
Even if the signatures were filed early, local clerks, who are readying for the September 3 primary elections, are not required to complete certification until the middle of October.
Federal lawsuit filed
Just days after Healey signed the bill, the Gun Owners' Action League filed a federal lawsuit challenging the new licensing regimes for firearm identification cards and licenses to carry.
"This law is so massive that no court will take it on all at once," GOAL says on its website. "The law will have to be broken down in chunks by specific subject matter. This will result in several different cases being filed. GOAL has been working for months with several organizations to share the workload."
The legislation targets "ghost guns" by requiring the state Department of Criminal Justice Information Services to develop and maintain a real-time electronic firearms registration system. It also requires that all firearms manufactured or assembled in Massachusetts be registered. In addition, the law prohibits unlicensed individuals from using 3D printers to manufacture guns.
According to the governor's office, the new law also updates the state’s assault weapons ban by expanding the definition of assault weapons to include "known assault weapons and other weapons that function like them with respect to certain features." It also prohibits possession, transfer, or sale of “assault-style” firearms or a large capacity feeding devices, the governor's office says.
Before it was signed by Healey, the measure passed the state House 124-22 and the Senate 35-5, with both votes taken on July 18.
This report includes material from the State House News Service.
