A week-long signature gathering effort piled up on Beacon Hill this week. More than 95,000 names were collected by the Civil Rights Coalition protesting a sweeping firearms bill signed into law and enacted with an emergency preamble by Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey.
“We ask our governor and legislature, by what authority do you act upon our unalienable rights,” said Toby Leary with the Civil Rights Coalition.
“This was a grassroots effort by the citizens of the Commonwealth to once again, for the second time, shut this down,” said Jim Wallace with Gun Owners Action League.
Gun advocates call that executive action an overreach, promising to take the issue to court.
“We have been working with national partners for almost a year to divvy things up into chunks by subject matter and then bring it to federal court,” said Wallace.
But Healey shares a different perspective. Doubling down on the need for that emergency preamble and reiterating support the policies included in the law.
“My job as governor, in the interest of protecting public safety, is to make sure we implement as quickly as possible a law that bans ghost guns, that are a threat right now to people in Massachusetts and across the country,” said Healey, “It’s as simple as that.”
It's a debate that could be decided by voters in 2026.
“It will be put to a ballot initiative either way and we’ll have two years to talk about the civics 101 that goes along with that,” said Leary.
“It came about through a democratic process, the legislature voted on this policy,” Healey said.
