Dual opinions from the high court signals that even under a tougher standard for determining the constitutionality of gun regulations recently set by the Supreme Court, Massachusetts’ firearms restrictions – some of the strictest in the nation – may rest on solid ground.
Guns
Posted inPolitics
Attorney General Andrea Campbell gears up for Trump round two
ONE WEEK AFTER the 2024 presidential election results, Attorney General Andrea Campbell has a staggering legal to-do list. “I think there are many out there doing the blame game or complaining. We don’t have time for that,” Campbell said on The Codcast. “I told my team to take whatever time they would need to grieve. […]
Posted inCourts
Post-Bruen decision, everyone has to be a gun-law historian
The decision has opened almost all aspects of the state’s gun safety law regime to challenge and sent lawyers scrambling for history books. As recent Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decisions have shown, if a policy is not tied to a founding-era law or practice – a so-called historical analogue – it likely will not survive judicial scrutiny.
Posted inGuns
Gun owners say effort to repeal new gun law is moving forward
The referendum is one part of an effort to challenge the new law alongside at least two — and possibly more to come — lawsuits.
Posted inPolitics
Political Notebook: Teamsters throw new wrench into election
When a union declines to issue an endorsement at the national level, that typically frees up the locals to make their own picks. But the Teamsters president’s old local is staying quiet.
Posted inCourts
SJC rules Mass. switchblade ban unconstitutional
Second Amendment protections are “not limited to firearms,” Justice Serge Georges wrote for a unanimous court. “Like handguns, a person can carry a switchblade for offensive or defensive purposes in case of confrontation.”
Posted inGuns
Healey signs overhaul of state firearms law
The law sets new strategies for combating so-called ghost guns, expanding the law that allows a court to take guns away from someone considered a threat to themselves or others, and adding schools, polling places, and government buildings to the list of areas where state law forbids people from carrying firearms.
Posted inState Government
Budget, gun control bills near finish line
Lawmakers would need to ship the final budget to Healey by Sunday to guarantee their ability to push through any spending or policy ideas over the governor’s objection.
Posted inGuns
Rare public conference committee closes its doors
Sen. Joan Lovely of Salem, a member of the conference committee, said her family was stalked after her prior participation on a committee dealing with gun regulations and that person has resurfaced.
Posted inCriminal Justice
In remarkable start to 2024, Boston has had only 2 homicides this year
Boston has had just 2 homicides so far in 2024, and shootings are down 64 percent, an extraordinary start to the year in a city that already had low baseline rates of homicide and gun violence.