Massachusetts Senate debates gun bill aimed at ghost guns and assault weapons

The bill would update state laws to ensure accountability for owners of “ghost guns,” tighten the state’s existing ban on assault weapons and make it illegal to possess devices that convert semiautomatic firearms into fully automatic machines. Convert to gun.

But ghost gunsThe bill seeks to ensure surveillance for those who possess privately manufactured, unserialized firearms that go largely undetected.

Democratic state senator Cynthia Cream, who helped write the bill, said, “Over the last six months I heard concerns about ghost guns from almost everyone.” “That’s because the use of ghost guns has increased in crimes in Massachusetts and across the country.”

In 2022, the US Department of Justice reported recovering 25,785 ghost guns in domestic seizures and 2,453 through international operations.

The state Senate bill would make it illegal to possess devices that convert semi-automatic firearms into fully automatic machine guns, including Glock switches and trigger activators.

It would also ensure that gun dealers are inspected annually and would allow the Massachusetts State Police to conduct inspections if a local licensing agency does not or cannot inspect.

Other elements of the bill would: ban the carrying of firearms in government administrative buildings; Requiring courts to compel individuals subject to harassment protection orders to surrender firearms who pose an immediate threat; prohibiting the marketing and sale of illegal firearms to minors; and criminal charges for knowingly discharging a firearm at a dwelling.

Ruth Zakarin, CEO of the Massachusetts Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence, said there is no single policy that can solve gun violence.

“I really appreciate the fact that the Senate, like the House, is taking a comprehensive approach to addressing this extremely complex issue,” she said. “The Senate bill really touches on a lot of different, important things, all of which together will help keep our communities safe.”

In October, Massachusetts House approved its own gun bill It aims to tighten firearms laws, crack down on ghost guns, and strengthen state restrictions on certain weapons.

The House bill would also prohibit individuals from carrying a gun into a person’s home without their permission and would require major components of a gun to be serialized and registered with the state. It would also ban carrying firearms in schools, polling places and government buildings.

Jim Wallace, executive director of the Gun Owners Action League, said he expected lawmakers to hold a separate public hearing on the Senate version of the bill because of significant differences with the House version.

“There are a lot of new things, industry things, machine gun things, definitions that are weird so the (Senate) bill should have gone to a separate hearing,” he said. “The Senate is doing its work very quickly and we keep asking what is the hurry?”

The House and Senate bills would need to be combined into a single compromise bill to send to Governor Maura Healey for her signature.

Last year, Massachusetts Democratic Attorney General Andrea Campbell announced a gun violence prevention unit dedicated to protecting the state’s gun laws from legal challenge.

Even though the state has one of the lowest rates of gun violence in the country, an average of 255 people a year die from guns in Massachusetts and 557 are injured. According to Campbell, this violence disproportionately impacts black youth, who are more than eight times as likely to die from gun violence as their white peers.

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