In an interview with Boston Public Radio Thursday, Attorney General Maura Healey responded to claims from critics that her move to crack down on ‘copycat’ assault weapons is beyond her authority and an infringement on second amendment rights. “Absolutely not,” Healey said. “We’ve done our homework, this is within our authority, and in fact it’s not only within our authority, but it’s our responsibility to enforce existing law.”
The Massachusetts assault weapons ban, passed in 1998, prohibits the sale of specific assault weapons and includes language to prohibit “copies or duplicates” of those weapons. According to Healey, a loophole in the legislation allowed gun manufacturers to define for themselves what constitutes a “copy”— and there was a whole lot of wiggle room.
“After Orlando, I was asked by many members of the media, ‘could this weapon have been purchased here in Massachusetts?’ so I asked the team to look into it,” Healey said. “What we found is that even though we had a ban on the sale of these weapons, copycat versions of these weapons were being sold in the state. I was shocked to hear that, I think a lot of people were shocked to hear that. These are weapons that are not designed for hunting, not designed for sport, contrary to what you hear from NRA advocates, but were designed for military and law-enforcement use, and really military use. They were designed to be able to fire as quickly as possible, as many shots as possible, to kill as many people as possible, in a short amount of time as possible.”
The Attorney General’s office sent a directive to 350 gun dealers throughout Massachusetts, outlining specific qualifications for what constitutes a copy or duplicate of an assault weapon. In no time at all, second amendment activists and gun groups began to push back. “I personally received a lot of hateful, very ugly messages, threats, social media posts and the like,” Healey said. “Of course the anonymity of the internet now enables all sorts of ugly stuff to be said.”
In response, Governor Charlie Baker called for clarity, saying that clarifications are needed to prevent a broad sweep of legal weapons. "I support the assault weapons ban that has been in place for nearly 20 years here in Massachusetts and support our country's Second Amendment,” Baker’s Secretary of Public Safety and Security Daniel Bennett wrote in a letter to the AG’s office. “However, ambiguities in your notice require clarification for responsible gun owners who simply want to follow the rules and for the thousands of gun owners who were told they were following the rules for 18 years."
“The governor is wrong about that,” Healey responded. “We could not be more explicit. The law and our enforcement does not apply to pistols, does not apply to handguns, does not apply to any number of weapons that are already out there, available for purchase. Contrary to what the governor has suggested, there’s not confusion about this. There’s no lack of clarity about this.”
Healey will be legally challenged in a lawsuit brought by The National Shooting Sports Foundation, supported by gun rights advocacy groups across the state. “I understand there has been a half million dollars poured into a litigation fund already to attack us and to challenge our authority,” Healey said, insisting that she remains confident that she is acting within the boundaries of her authority. “We have a law in the books, my job as Attorney General is to enforce the law, and once we learned that these weapons are being sold in violation of the law, we gave notice that that’s over. We’re going to be out there enforcing the law, making sure that these weapons that are so lethal and wreak such havoc aren’t going to be available for sale here in Massachusetts.”
