Question 9 cont…

[u/HAV816]

Question 9 is a veto referendum on the 2024 gun law (Chapter 135): a NO vote repeals it. But here is what does not change either way — Massachusetts still requires a license to own or carry, and safety training to get one. Repeal the law and the pre-2024 rules remain, among the strictest in the country: licenses required, safety training required, sales tracked, red-flag petitions in place.

The 2024 law adds burdens on lawful owners — serialization requirements, expanded bans, a real-time registry — without creating the training standard. Training was required before this law, and it stays required whether the law is repealed or not.
Learn the facts

[u/Altruistic-Task2410]

Yea I’d absolutely agree that we should do everything that we can to keep guns out of the hands of bad people. The problem is that you don’t know who is a bad person until they do something bad. Our state has a history of the courts throwing out firearm charges. Sure maybe they get another charge to stick, but we shouldn’t be arresting the same person for firearms related crimes over and over again. I would think that everyone agrees that something should be done about that.

Question 9 does nothing to accomplish that. It only burdens law abiding gun owners, and next summer when the Supreme Court releases its assault weapon decision parts of this will be overturned. Do you like the fact that all current and retired law enforcement, including federal (so ICE, FBI, etc) are completely exempt from this bill? They had to add the exemption in or it wouldn’t have gotten the support of the police union. How about the fact that we have some of the lowest gun violence in the country but Maura Healy declared a state of emergency due to gun violence and pushed this through?

[u/Hsabes01 → u/Altruistic-Task2410]

“The problem is that you don’t know who is a bad person until they do something bad”. Sure, I don’t know someone is capable of doing something bad until they do it, but at that point they’ve already done it and this line of logic has solved absolutely nothing, and kids are still dying. Are you suggesting we should just let these horrific incidents keep occurring and ignore an obvious pattern of behavior/mental conditions that tend to lead to these incidents? I’m not understanding why stricter conditions on gun ownership will impede on a good and healthy person’s ability to own a gun.

[u/IguassuIronman → u/Altruistic-Task2410]

Yea I’d absolutely agree that we should do everything that we can to keep guns out of the hands of bad people. The problem is that you don’t know who is a bad person until they do something bad

Sounds like an argument to keep guns out of people's hands in general