Massachusetts gun owners pressed residents to join a campaign to repeal a gun law passed earlier this summer that critics argue infringes upon Second Amendment rights.
A group of gun rights activists, local Republicans, and candidates for elected office gathered on Boston Common Saturday to rail against the new statute. It’s part of the early stages of an effort to push a referendum on the measure for the 2026 election.
Cape Gun Works Co-Founder Toby Leary said the entire 116-page bill that Gov. Maura Healey signed into law in July is “unconstitutional” and does not meet the so-called “bright-line” test, or the idea that people need to clearly understand laws to follow them.
“This law is so muddy, so murky, it’s buried 20 feet underground. We’ve already been going through a checkerboard of capricious and arbitrary laws regarding the Second Amendment that everyone’s worried about running afoul of … because they don’t want to lose their right to keep and bear arms,” he told the Herald.
Beacon Hill Democrats earlier this year ushered through a measure that bars residents under 21 from owning semiautomatic rifles or shotguns, though people between the ages of 18 and 21 could still own and possess firearms with an identification card.
The law allows those under 18 to use firearms under the direct supervision of a licensed adult for hunting, instruction, recreation, and participation in shooting sports.
The statute also requires prospective firearms identification card holders to undergo live fire training and bans gun modifications that turn semiautomatic firearms into automatic ones.
Rep. Michael Day, a Stoneham Democrat and chief architect of the law, has said its intent is to keep the public safe.“Largely, the goal here was to make sure that Massachusetts was safer, that residents were safer, that gun owners were safer, that the general public is safer. We’ve got the lowest incidence of gun violence in the country,” he said when Democrats struck a deal on the proposal this summer. “That’s going to be even lower.”
But since Healey inked her name to the bill, gun owners and national groups have threatened lawsuits and started the attempt to repeal the measure in 2026.
Clint Morgan, a self-described Second Amendment social media influencer from New Hampshire, pushed back on portions of the law that take aim at so-called “ghost guns,” or untraceable firearms.
He said the term “ghost gun” is “another scare tactic term that a lot of media and political are trying to use.”
“There’s nothing illegal about manufacturing your own guns,” he said. “There’s nothing illegal about purchasing an 80% lower receiver and then milling it out yourself and building it. Now, granted, there’s laws in states that ultimately say, if you were to transfer that to somebody, you have to serialize it and things like that.”
Leary said the campaign to repeal the law will be successful so long as “people are awoken to the fact that their rights have been eroded by politicians who broke their oath of office.”
“If you can do it to the Second Amendment, the Second Amendment is not a second class right, then you can do it to any amendment,” he said. “Maybe they will bring back the poll tax, or maybe they will break their oath of office and try to ban some religious group.”
Massachusetts Republican Party Chair Amy Carnevale said the campaign to repeal the law is just getting organized and an official launch is expected to take place next week.
“I think conservative voters and residents of Massachusetts really have seen an overreach in state government, and the fact that this has been signed into law knowing that there’s a potential constitutional challenge to come, I think will speak to residents of the commonwealth,” she said.
