Massachusetts Petition Drive Gaining Momentum

Bay State gun owners battling Massachusetts’ restrictive new package of gun-control laws have hit a milestone in their efforts to roll back the punitive infringements.

According to a report at police1.com, organizers of a ballot effort to repeal the law have gathered enough signatures—more than 90,000—on an initiative petition to place the question on the 2026 state ballot.

Toby Leary, one of the petition’s organizers and co-founder of a gun shop and shooting range in Hyannis, Massachusetts, told the Associated Press that the law is “an effort to suppress a right that is enshrined in our Bill of Rights” and never should have been passed.

“This is something that is aimed at all of our civil rights,” Leary said. “If they can do this to the Second Amendment, they can do this to any other right.”

The new law adds a number of firearms to the commonwealth’s list of banned so-called “assault weapons,” which, of course, are just common semi-automatic rifles, pistols and shotguns. Another provision raises the age to own a semi-automatic rifle or shotgun to 21 years of age. Yet another portion of the law makes the commonwealth’s “red-flag” statute even more onerous for gun owners and their right to due process, and also makes the state’s current ban on standard-capacity magazines even more restrictive.

In addition, the law instructs the Department of Criminal Justice to set up a real-time electronic firearms registration system and dictates that: “All firearm transactions within the commonwealth, including, but not limited to, all purchases, sales, rentals, leases, loans or other transfers shall be reported to the electronic firearms registration system.”

Other provisions within the law include expanding the definitions for modifications and parts that could convert a semi-auto into a full-auto firearm and banning them, prohibiting so-called “ghost guns,” and expanding the list of places where carrying a firearm is banned to include government buildings, polling places and schools. The law also requires standardized safety training, including a live fire component, for all firearm license applicants.

On October 2, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey signed an emergency preamble putting the law, which the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) calls “the most extreme gun control laws in the country,” into effect immediately. The purely political procedural move circumvented any opportunity for citizens to utilize the referendum process to appeal the law anytime soon.

Along with the initiative petition drive, the law is already facing a number of legal challenges. Frustrated about both the content of the law and the way it was handled in the legislature, the Gun Owners’ Action League (GOAL) has filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of many of the provisions. Jim Wallace, executive director of GOAL, said the law represents the “greatest attack on civil rights in modern U.S. history.”

“For over a year, the supporters of this law have violated and suspended nearly every rule regarding an open legislative process,” Wallace said. “The final drafting of the bill was done in secret and the final language was not provided to the public, or legislators, until the night before the vote. 

Also, a gun shop owner from Bellingham, Massachusetts, has filed a lawsuit challenging the new law. Gino Recchia, owner of Mass Armament, filed the complaint earlier this month in federal court on the grounds that the law infringes on the Second Amendment rights of him and his business.

According to the complaint, the business at Mass Armament “is centered, and has been developed, around firearms and large-capacity magazines prohibited by law.” An estimated 70 percent of the store’s business will be lost under the new limitations, the complaint states.

“I’d say I can’t believe it, but I can,” Recchia said of the governor expediting the law in a video posted on Instagram last week. “But this is Massachusetts, and boy do our politicians not care for our civil rights in the slightest.”

The NRA is also preparing to challenge the law in court, and Healey’s recent action putting the law into effect immediately has provided that organization with an opportunity to expedite that legal challenge.