Revised MA Gun Bill Creates Rift Among Gun Owners

Friday, July 11, 2014

Nicholas Handy, GoLocalWorcester Contributor

As the recently amended Massachusetts Gun Bill passed through the House in a vote of 122-38, gun owners are beginning to split in their opinion on the bill.

While the Gun Owners Action League – the organization that had been advocating for the rewrite of the bill – has changed their opinion from strongly opposed to neutral, other gun owners and activists are still outraged about the bill, saying that the rewrite of the bill still does nothing to address criminals and guns.

“When you see an organization fight for the rights of gun owners throughout the state and then switch to neutral in their opinion, that organization isn’t doing their job,” said Chris Pinto, a member of the Worcester Republican City Committee. “Nothing in this bill affects criminals; it only hurts law abiding gun owners. This is a bill that abuses second amendment rights and ultimately is not a win for anyone throughout the state of Massachusetts.”

The original bill – H4121 which was labeled “An Act Relative to the Reduction of Gun Violence” – was recently modified and voted on as H4278. While House members were given less than 24 hours to analyze the revised bill – which most notably changed the FID card section of the bill, requiring a police chief to give a valid public safety reason to deny someone an FID card – H4278 was still passed and is now heading to the Senate.

Gun Owners Outraged

Pinto says that he has already seen a bevy of negative reactions to the passing of the gun bill and the seemingly passive reaction from many people who initially stood up against the gun bill. While GOAL and George Peterson – the lone Republican that voted in favor of the gun bill – have become seemingly lax on the bill, Pinto says himself, the NRA, and others are still vehemently against the bill.

According to Pinto, many members of GOAL have taken to social media websites, taking photographs of ripped up renewal applications for GOAL because they feel that they have been betrayed by the organization.

“Robert DeLeo’s name should be Simon because the House is going to follow whatever he says,” said Pinto. “After this bill was passed, the reaction was worse than I had thought in terms of the law abiding gun owners reaction. GOAL and Peterson were both supposed to be working close with the bill and in the end, they both came out in favor of the bill. This issue is cut and dry; this bill creates an unfunded bureaucracy in our schools, abuses second amendment rights, and affects everyone in Massachusetts because now even people who don’t care about gun rights or issues will have to pay taxes to fund the mandated school program.”

Neutral Does Not Mean Happy

When taking a neutral stance on the gun bill, Jim Wallace Executive Director of the Gun Owners Action League, in no way says that he was endorsing the bill.

Through having continued conversations with Speaker DeLeo and getting some of the organization’s largest concerns addressed, Wallace believes that the bill has changed enough to warrant a neutral opinion for gun owners. Wallace acknowledges that some members have had questions about the bill, but has not heard of any stark opposition of the League’s decision to switch to neutral on the bill.

“I wouldn’t say that we are happy with this bill; we certainly aren’t jumping up and down,” said Wallace. “There are still a few issues that we would like to examine further. The reason why we are neutral on this amended bill is because we are now looking at a drastically different piece of information.”

Related Slideshow: The Influence of Gun Money in New England States

New Data from The Sunlight Foundation shows state-by-state breakdowns for donations to groups on both sides of the gun debate. The money went toward candidates, political parties, and political action committees (PACs), but doesn't include donations to independent or so-called “super PACs”.

See how much money went to candidates in each of the New England States in the slides below.

Prev Next