BOSTON (AP) — The Massachusetts Senate debated a sweeping gun bill on Thursday as the state crafts its response to a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that citizens have a right to carry firearms in public for self-defense.
The bill would update state laws to ensure accountability for owners of “ghost guns,” toughen the state’s existing prohibition on assault weapons and make it illegal to possess devices that convert semiautomatic firearms into fully automatic machine guns.
On ghost guns, the bill seeks to ensure oversight for those who own the privately made, unserialized firearms that are largely untraceable.
“I heard concerns about ghost guns from nearly everyone I spoke to over the last six months,” said Democratic state Sen. Cynthia Creem, who helped write the bill. “That’s because the use of ghost guns in crimes has surged in Massachusetts and around the country.”
In 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice reported recovering 25,785 ghost guns in domestic seizures and 2,453 through international operations.