The coalition working to strike a new state gun law off the books says it’s met a key threshold to have voters decide the issue in 2026 and is forecasting a multi-front legal battle over the legislation.
In July, state lawmakers passed and Gov. Maura Healey signed a sweeping package of updates to Massachusetts’ gun laws. Among many other measures, the new law prohibits the carrying of firearms at schools and polling places, imposes new training requirements for people seeking gun licenses and cracks down on the untraceable weapons known as ghost guns, including those made of 3D printed parts.
It also criminalizes the possession of devices like bump stocks and trigger modifiers, expands the definition of “assault weapons” that are banned under state law, and prohibits the issuing of licenses to carry machine guns, except to firearms instructors and bona fide collectors.
Toby Leary, who is leading the coalition pushing to repeal the law, said the policy as a whole “is specifically aimed at reducing your right to keep and bear arms as well as other rights that go along with it.”
Leary spoke to reporters outside the State House Tuesday, to announce that the coalition has “no doubt” its members have gathered sufficient voter signatures to place a repeal question on the 2026 ballot.
“The citizens started to rise up,” said Leary, the co-owner of Cape Gun Works in Hyannis. “They said, ‘No. You know what? We have played the game. We have jumped through all the hoops to exercise a right that is enshrined in the Bill of Rights. We’ve done it. We’ve paid fees, we’ve taken classes, we’ve been background-checked, we’ve been photographed, we’ve been fingerprinted, we have purchased guns with background checks, lawfully and legally.’”
The Massachusetts Constitution allows voters to petition to repeal certain laws passed by the state Legislature, by putting a “yes” or “no” question on a future state election ballot.
To bring the question before voters in 2026, the repeal campaign must gather and submit more than 37,000 signatures by a Wednesday deadline. Leary said his coalition so far has collected more than 90,000, without using paid signature-gatherers.
The repeal process also lays out a threshold for a law to be suspended until voters have their say, one that this petition could have met.
However, laws that carry emergency preambles — a section of legislative language calling for the law to take effect immediately, rather than the standard 90 days after it’s signed — cannot be suspended. Lawmakers did not initially attach an emergency preamble to the gun law, but the state Constitution grants governors the power to do so at any time before the election when the repeal question is on the ballot.
Healey issued an emergency preamble last week, allowing much of the law to take effect immediately and staving off a suspension bid.
The gun law is also being challenged in the courts, with at least two lawsuits against it filed so far and more apparently on the way.
“There’s going to be lots of legal action coming over the next couple of weeks,” Leary said. “I’ll say that.”
As opponents of the law work to undo it, its supporters say they’ll strive to preserve it.
“While Massachusetts has lower rates of gun violence than other states, it is not zero — and we want to get it to zero,” Ruth Zakarin, CEO of the Massachusetts Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence, told GBH News. “We also know that there’s no one single policy that is going to solve the issue of gun violence. It is about strengthening policy. It’s about investing in community based solutions. And we see this law, it’s important in how comprehensive it is and the fact that it really takes a number of different steps to keep our community safer from gun violence.”
