Weer'd World

And not guns banned (because theorically it’s ALL of them banned, even the 10-22 and the Walther P22), but the gathering forces are rattling sabers.

I think I linked this article….but didn’t reference this quote:

NRA is still assessing all legal and legislative options to protect the rights of Massachusetts gun owners. Stay tuned.

But also NSSF is joining in:

The National Shooting Sports Foundation® (NSSF®), the trade association for the firearms and ammunition industry, today announced that it will pursue legal action to challenge the “Enforcement Notice” issued by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey that would appear to ban sales of semiautomatic rifles in the commonwealth.

“With this ‘Enforcement Action,’ the Attorney General’s office has demonstrated how little it understands about firearms and has generated considerable uncertainty and confusion,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF senior vice president and general counsel. “Attorney General Healey and/or her staff have overreached their authority and decided to legislate from her office without the benefit of any public process. Her actions totally disregard 18 years of Massachusetts firearm law, supported by all state regulatory agencies and understood by all concerned, in which firearm retailers have operated. The Attorney General has undermined the legislative and public process by unilaterally declaring products that were legal to be illegal. In doing so, she has endangered the livelihoods of family-owned businesses and made potential felons out of tens of thousands of law-abiding citizens.”

“This unlawful overstepping of power must be challenged,” Keane said. NSSF has retained Michael Sullivan of the Ashcroft Law Firm, who is a former United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts and former acting director, U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and the Boston-based law firm of Kenney and Sams, P.C.

NSSF is preparing and will file its action soon but will not discuss detailed legal strategy, potential co-plaintiffs or other details at this time.

And standing behind them is S&W:

The National Shooting Sports Foundation® (NSSF®), the trade association for the firearms industry, is pleased to announce that Smith & Wesson has joined NSSF’s #GUNVOTE Chairman’s Club with a $500,000 contribution to the association’s critical voter registration and education campaign. This is the largest contribution the #GUNVOTE campaign has received to date.

…James Debney, CEO of Smith & Wesson, said, “We are honored to support this effort on behalf of our employees and especially the law-abiding firearm owners of Massachusetts, who have so recently been denied their fundamental rights through arbitrary government action that threatens to turn lawful gun owners and dealers into criminals. To stop this from happening elsewhere, it is imperative that citizens across our nation are informed and knowledgeable about their rights, their candidates and the importance of their vote in this critical election year.”

I’m hoping all the relevant parties are communicating to join forces and give AG Healey the legal stomping she deserves.

So for a timeline, AG Maura Healey sent her letter, and had her press conference, that she claims only bans “Copy Cat weapons”, but people who know guns interpret as banning ALL modern semi-auto rifles, shotguns, and pistols, on Wednesday, July 20th, right in the middle of the Democrat National Convention. She promptly left the state to attend the Democrat National Convention.

And the last day the legislature was in session was yesterday. So to say we were dealing with a compressed timeframe is to understate it horribly!

There were some good bills filed, this was my favorite (PDF)

But in the end, we didn’t move the needle:

Massachusetts House Speaker Robert DeLeo shut the door on debating gun legislation this weekend, saying lawmakers won’t take up bills in reaction to Attorney General Maura Healey’s crackdown on ‘copycat’ assault weapons. The legality of her move will likely end up in court, he said.

…”There’s no possible way we could have an issue such as a gun debate be debated and acted upon within two days,” said DeLeo, D-Winthrop, as gun rights activists knocked on lawmakers’ doors in a bid to get them to take up bills stripping Healey of her authority over gun regulations.

DeLeo said lawmakers’ current focus is overriding Gov. Charlie Baker’s vetoes of the state budget. Lawmakers could take up compromise bills on energy, economic development, and municipal government reform, among a few others.

I must at this time note that Rep DeLeo is one of TWO surviving Massachusetts attorney Generals to NOT be convicted federal felons, and his predecessor, Sal DeMassi is rotting in federal prison right now, the third speaker to step down due to federal criminal acts.

There is still hope that AG Healey will issue a clarification letter, but for now it’ll be up to the courts to rule. It SHOULD be a clean-cut case, as Heller v DC and McDonald v City of Chicago both state that firearms “In common use” can’t be restricted, but the level of corruption of the Massachusetts Democrat party, and the Democrat party at large is immense.

Both GOAL and NRA ILA are pledging to fight this. If you want to donate, I’d appreciate that.

58 Legislators have signed a letter expressing their strong opposition to AG Healey’s insane re-interpretation. The text of the letter can be read here (PDF)

I’m also very pleasantly surprised that 18 of those Signatures were Democrats, so while AG Healey is far from a pariah here in Mass, but she also doesn’t have the full strength of the party behind her….and party lockstep, in a state like this, is the rule, not the exception, for both parties.

So read the whole thing, but I’ll toss in the money quote for those who don’t have time right this moment.

For the last 18 years, the law has been implemented and enforced consistently, both by your office and your predecessors. Your new directive, which has been presented by your office as nothing more than a closing of “loopholes” in the current law, appears in fact to be much more than that: the enforcement of a whole new law that unfairly infringes on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding gun owners in Massachusetts.

One must argue, if Gun control is so popular, why do they need to go to such lengths, and abandon all ethics to expand gun control laws? In what is a massively anti-gun state!

So here I said:

I’m not a good judge of crowds, but It was over 1,000 just from my counting. Also note it was 90 degrees out there! Us New Englanders don’t do well in the heat, but we bear it when we need to!

I didn’t want to be the asshole calling a crowd of 1,000, 10,000, because I really don’t know what 1,000 people looks like just from looking at a crowd. I knew it was HUGE, but I didn’t know how big.

Well the numbers are out CBS is reporting:

About 2,000 gun rights advocates have rallied outside the Massachusetts Statehouse to protest Democratic Attorney General Maura Healey’s crackdown on the sale and manufacture of what she’s called copycat assault weapons.

Activists attending the Saturday rally said Healey is taking rogue actions that will turn thousands of gun owners into “future felons.”

But of course Joe points out those assholes headline it as “hundreds”.