BOSTON (State House News Service) – As it did with the bill that the House passed in the fall, the Massachusetts arm of the National Rifle Association is not backing any of the nearly 80 amendments filed to the gun law reform package the Senate is expected to pass Thursday.
What is in the gun bill that the Massachusetts Senate is voting on?
The Senate will gavel in at 11 a.m. to debate the suite of reforms crafted by Majority Leader Cindy Creem on behalf of the branch’s leadership (S 2572) with more than six dozen amendments pending. Senators filed 79 amendments by Monday’s deadline and three had been withdrawn as of Wednesday afternoon. But none of them are being pushed at the request of Gun Owners’ Action League, the local NRA chapter that says the Senate bill “like the House bill … is so convoluted that there is no way it can be fixed with amendments.”
“The fact that legislators are constantly telling us, well it’s better than the House bill, does not forgive the substantial assault on our civil rights,” GOAL Executive Director Jim Wallace said in a statement . “Like the House bill, there is absolutely nothing in this bill to address crime and mental illness. The senate’s proposal would produce massive authority to create limitless regulations and authority of the Attorney General to use the proposed laws in a punitive manner even against people outside of the 2A community!”