A GUN-BUYING FRENZY that resulted in 2,500 assault weapons being purchased Wednesday – one-fourth the total sold all of last year – has forced Attorney General Maura Healey into threatening dealers with criminal penalties and the loss of their licenses for trying to beat her crackdown on the rifles.
According to data from the state Firearms Records Bureau, gun enthusiasts bought 2,549 rifles on Wednesday, the same day Healey announced that her office would rigidly enforce a 1998 law that prohibits the sale of specific semi-automatic guns such as AK-47s and AR-15s, as well as “copies or duplicates of the weapons.” By contrast, 132 of the guns were sold on Tuesday and just 51 on Monday. About 10,000 of the guns were sold in 2015.
The purchases were in defiance of an order issued by Healey that none of the guns could be sold in Massachusetts after Tuesday. Now Healey, whose intent was to get rid of the weapons, finds herself in the awkward position of trying to undo a run on what she has called “weapons of war” after they’ve already been sold.
While Healey’s office remained silent on what would happen to those who bought the guns Wednesday, her spokeswoman said dealers could face criminal or civil sanctions for the sales. The statute calls for up to two years in jail for selling the banned guns.
The key issue is when Healey’s order took effect. In a directive made to the state’s 350 gun dealers on Tuesday she ordered them to cease selling the weapons “immediately.” At her press conference announcing the directive on Wednesday, she said none of the weapons could be sold after Tuesday. Her spokeswoman, however, said on Thursday that the attorney general’s directive took effect at the time of her announcement, presumably on Wednesday. (Healey also wrote about her new policy in an op-ed in the Boston Globe that appeared online on Tuesday and ran in the Wednesday paper.)
Healey said she was stepping up because of the scores of spree shootings that have killed dozens of people around the country. Surrounded by clergy, victims’ families, police chiefs, and prosecutors, she made the passionate plea to rid the state of the assault weapons like those used in the slaughter of 20 children at Sandy Hook Elementary school in Connecticut, 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, and the killings of five Dallas police officers and three more in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Healey claims gun manufacturers make minor or cosmetic changes to the guns while maintaining the same functions and then market them as “Massachusetts compliant.” She said the directive was not a new rule or even a change but just an enforcement of the 18-year-old statute that she says has been abused by manufacturers.
“The gun industry doesn’t get to decide what’s compliant,” she said when making her announcement. “We do.”
She said people who purchased the rifles prior to her order would be able to keep them and no dealers would be prosecuted if they sold them before then.
Christopher Pinto, president of the advocacy group Massachusetts Gun Rights, Inc., of Worcester, claimed he bought an AR-15 for his wife on Wednesday to beat Healey’s directive and insisted he intends to keep it.
“What is she going to do, come to my house and get it?“ asked Pinto, who was in Cleveland as a delegate at the Republican National Convention.
A group of gun owners gathered at the State House Thursday evening to protest Healey’s action, with another rally planned on Saturday when the Legislature is in session. Many said Healey’s decision was not an enforcement of the law but rather stemmed from her interpretation based on what they say is her anti-gun stance. Most in attendance said they own the types of rifles Healey says are illegal. Even though she said she won’t take action against those who bought them before Wednesday, the protesters said they were concerned she could change her mind and arbitrarily confiscate their weapons in the future.
“The system is set up to debate and we can have due process,” said Archie Taylor, 45, of Dracut. “It’s not anybody’s right to tell us what we can protect ourselves with. Police and other law enforcement officials can have these guns but a private citizen can’t? Everyone is human, everyone is fallible. What makes them any more special than us?”
So, in essence, thousands of people in the state openly committed felonies? When was this interpretation of the law put in place by her again? As soon as she said so?
That thing you have owned for several decades, well, that’s a felony now and I am going to charge you with a crime?
That seems rather arbitrary.
What if someone did not hear the announcement? Or if they got word that the effective date was Thursday?
And does this mean that with a simple announcement she can ban or confiscate any firearm she effectively designates? Why not just ban all firearms then? If she interprets the law as her ability to do so? Confiscate what people already has… since she has put in place this odd “waiver”?
I would gladly charge you thursday for that firearm you purchased legally on monday…
Very odd. And you have to prove people have these items in their possession. Is the fact that someone purchased a gun enough cause to search their home?
This is just bizarre. Why not take the time to place this restriction in hard law where it belongs, rather than taking the absolute authority route?
According to Healy, the statute that allows her to designate “assault rifles” gives her the ability to enforce any prohibition, including a ban on the sale and confiscation of property? Any property that she decides?
Is that what the legislature intended? There seems to be a lot more in play here in terms of the law than just guns. Can the legislature give an official sweeping mandates to define crime and enforce the law? I think the word for that would be… a dictatorship?
Why not just pass a law that allows her to prosecute anyone for any reason? If she can just invent reasons…
Hmmmm.
Molon labe.
It’s not illegal to be illegal.
“The gun industry doesn’t get to decide what’s compliant,” she said when making her announcement. “We do.”
The state has a “LARGE CAPACITY WEAPONS ROSTER 02-2015” which says:
“This roster has been compiled in accordance with M.G.L. c.140, §131¾. It contains weapons determined to have been originally manufactured for the civilian retail consumer market as large capacity weapons as defined by M.G.L. c. 140, § 121.”
I guess we are all felons now? Goal posts are constantly moving with this piece of sh**.
They are all Mass Compliant firearms. They’re not minor cosmetic changes. They are in accordance to the law which bans those cosmetic items. The law literally bans plastic parts and does not change the fuction. Which is why the ban is dumb to begin with and if she actually read the law she would know. None of the rifles sold that day were illegal. She is a such an idiot. Send one person to jail over this and you’re ruining someone’s life over your personal feelings of a sporting rifle. Baker better step up on this and either fire her or tell her she has to follow the law to the letter and AR-15s are legal as long long as they comply with the guidelines of the ban.
I called the local gun shop around noon on Wednesday, while they had heard something in the news they had not received any directive to stop selling the firearms so they sold the remainder of their stock (they were out by 2pm). These directives require some form of legal notification not someone forwarding something from facebook. She had a press conference in the morning and posted it online but until the notification was officially delivered to the gun shops they had no duty to stop selling.
Maybe not Agokne, but it is definitely illegal to be legal in MA where the MASSholes rule the land. >:(
Refuse to comply. Evade, hide, bypass, and otherwise channel the Foxtrot Uniform spirit of our Founding Fathers who threw a tea party for much less.
Someone ought to pass this on to her since she decided to bypass the first 4 steps:
Here is the part the Anti-Gunners keep overlooking:
Want to create a gun-free America in 5 easy steps?
Here’s all there is to it:
Step 1: Elect. For a gun-free America, the first thing you’ll need is two-thirds of Congress. So elect a minimum of 67 Senators and 290 Representatives who are on your side.
Step 2: Propose. Then, have them vote to propose an amendment to the Constitution which repeals Second Amendment gun rights for all Americans.
Step 3: Ratify. Then convince the legislators of 38 states to ratify that change.
At this point, the Second Amendment is history, but you’ve done nothing to decrease gun violence. All you’ve done is remove the barrier for Congress to act.
Step 4: Legislate. You need to enact “common sense” reform.
You can try to do what Australia did and…ban all guns? That’s not at all what they did, but whatever, f— it. Go big or go home, right?
It will have to be passed by Congress and signed by the president.
Great! The law is passed and guns are now illegal. The only thing left to do is…
Step 5: Enforce. Guns won’t just disappear because you passed a law. You need to confiscate some 500 million guns scattered among 330 Million Americans.
Sure, you can try a buy-back program like Australia, but like Australia that will still leave behind anywhere from 60 percent to 80 percent of privately owned firearms.
The rest you have to take.
You’ll need the police, the FBI, the ATF or the National Guard, or State Police—all known for their nuanced approach to potentially dangerous situations—to go door-to-door, through 3.8 million square miles of this country and take guns, by force, from thousands, if not, millions of well-armed individuals. Many of whom would rather start a civil war than acquiesce.
So inevitably gun violence, which is currently at a historic low, will skyrocket.
But that is how you get a gun-free America in five easy steps.
If the people of Mass. let her get away with this do you think she’ll stop there? There’ll be more bannings in the future. And if she avoids impeachment over this I have but one thing to say to you all; “Baaaaaa”.
Dissent is the highest form of Patriotism. Remember that Healey.
AG is elected in Mass. Baker can’t fire her. But he could come out against her action. which he hasn’t because he’s a Mass RINO.
Attention Everyone in MA: Since the AG said the guns purchased since 9/94 are illegal – that means they no longer have to comply with the banned feature list. The AG has already proclamed them “copies” and thus are “assault weapons” even if they do not have the naughty features. So go ahead and throw on that collapsible stock, flash hider, and bayonet. You’re gun is already an assault weapon. So adding those features will – according to the AG – not change the status of your rifle. So why conform to the banned features anymore?
Not an assault rifle…semi-automatic rifle.
Great points, why no period of public notification?! Be it 10, 30 or 90 days, that how democracies work, instead of dictators in public office issuing midnight decrees.
Why no period of public notification?! Be it 10, 30 or 90 days, which is how democracies work, instead of dictators in public office issuing midnight decrees.
Wow, good one Maura.. these idiots never learn that trying to ban guns always results in increased sales, as well as put guns in the hands of inexperienced people that would normally buy one only when they feel comforable owning one.
Are we sure she doesn’t secretly work for one of the major gun manufacturers to boost sales with these kinds of threats???
If she was so passionate about prosecuting gun violence why did let Stephen Sylvia off with 17 months time served ? he was a accessory to murder and terrorism !. And when has any of theses so called weapons of war been used in a crime in the commonwealth ? You are more likely to be killed by a drunk driver than a “assult rifle” Yet no crack down on liquor stores or bars
Redefining 20+ year old laws to make formerly legal things illegal, and without any type of legislative process, in the span of 24 hours, no less, sounds pretty unconstitutional to me. The tree of liberty…..
Healey is a simpleton
“The gun industry doesn’t get to decide what’s compliant,” she said when making her announcement. “We do.”
-Maura Healy
No, Maura, the law does that.
The compliant firearms were designed to be in specific compliance with the original and poorly-written law. Words Mean Things. Which underscores how capricious and arbitrary the law is.
It is called ‘ex post facto’ law, making an act illegal after it has been committed. It is prohibited by the Constitution. If ever informed of this, Healy may well say, “Oh, ….that….”
Those that might applaud her actions because they do not personally like guns, would be the first to have a conniption at the mere hint of a waiting period or parental consent to terminate a pregnancy. Not to cloud the issue, but I think most folks know what I mean.
She has zero authority, even under some arbitrary state law.
Nailed it.
Well committing mass negligence with handling thousands of government emails on an unsecure server sounded pretty stupid to me, too, but what do we know? We aren’t part of the political royalty, so we play by the rules they give us whether we like them or not. A monarchy by any other name.
YOU ARE CORRECT SHE STATED “NO SUCH THING AS MASS COMPLIANT”ACCESORY THEM BABYS UP…
She had to do it before the dem covetion so she can look tough..even though she will get the crap sued.out of her and cost the state millions
More biased anti second amendment reporting from this Sullivan hack. And by “reporting” I of course mean reinforcing the talking-points he has been handed by the AG’s press officer — hey Jack were you promised a pat on the head from Healey.
And guess what. Good luck finding any National Guard willing to disarm their fellow citizens. Upper echelon command will become irrelevant and our military will go rogue.
Its happened before though. During hurricane katrina Nat Guard along with state police went house to house in search of weapons… while armed gangs were out at night looting.
Look up the news reports from it on youtube.
She’s just another frustrated control freak