Despite having some of the toughest gun laws in the country, Massachusetts appears poised to enact even tighter restrictions following the mass shooting that killed 20 first-graders and six adults at an elementary school in Connecticut, House Speaker Robert DeLeo said.
“There is a feeling among all of us — from the administration to the Senate to us — that this is one of the priority subject matters for us to address this session. I do feel there will be some movement,” DeLeo said in an interview with the Globe last week. “We’ve got to do something about it.”
Comments
Tougher gun laws? What about the ones already on the books? Are they ever enforced? Whatever happened to the Bartley-Fox law passed in the 1970s the was supposed to ensure a one-year mandatory prison term for anyone caught with an illegal gun?
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1976/7/16/study-shows-massachusetts-gun-law-has/
No reason to mention, for balance, the reason for the Second Amendment I suppose; but I'd like to have read the reason to require liability insurance for gun ownership. Trying to imagine the mass shooters buying liability insurance before heading out the door to kill innocent people. Only possible reason I can think of for this idiot proposal is to intimidate and punish legal gun owners to for having the temerity to want to protect themselves and their families. Shouldn't Linsky be filing legislation to round up the guns carried illegally by those who are shooting children in Boston?
“My question for the government is, where’s the problem?” Wallace said. “The reason this thing is so horrible, it’s because it’s so rare.”---------So, as long as 20 little kids and 6 adults don't get shot too often, alls right with the world. What a nutbag. 30,000 a year including 2500 kids a year is no problem, very rare.
Yup, it is so scarey, it is probably best that you do not step outside. In fact, you seem so concerned, you might consider the UK, where they only had 59 gun homicides last year. But then, you would have to accept their violent crime rate which is 5X ours. But being beaten, stabbed, robbed, and raped is way better than defending yourself. Of course, you have not indicated that 30,000 includes suicides, accidents and justifiable homicides, have you? A nutbag is someone who goes overboard when an event occurs and only focuses on the tragedy, not the reality.
“I don’t think that’s a bad thing,” Peterson said, “because we, as individuals, have the right to protect ourselves.” With 88 guns per 100 people in the US its obvious people need protection from other people who need protection. The guns kids in Dorchester and other places are using came from legitimate buys originally. The numbers of guns in the market is the problem.
PValen, not to worry, some of the gun owners are going to bury their guns. In years to come, when the government has gone totally ape, and you are wondering "WHAT HAPPENED TO PARADISE!!!!", maybe, they will dig them out and have a shot at freeing your liberal self. Lord knows, you won't be able to.
Ah, the dreaded high capacity magazine. Tell me Mr. Deleo, does it really make a difference if someone has a 30 round magazine or 3 ten round magazines? Do you have any clue how fast a mag change can happen? I don't think so, otherwise you would realize how foolish you look putting so much attention on a magazine.
Why does the photo accompanying this gun law article make Speaker DeLeo look as if he is notifying a 9-year-old child that his/her puppy was just hit by a car while at the same time sucking a lemon? The Glob sure has a great file of 'make them look as dopey as we can' photos of Massachusetts pols... especially Granny Warren. But it does need a better such photo of Deval the Corner Office Occupier in Chief.
One does not have to be intelligent to be a politician, just cunning. Some very cunning animals look dopey, I don't think anyone has to try extra hard to make some of these politicians look dopey, it is their natural state.
"We've go to do something about it." Not to be facetious, but what is "IT"? My perception is that "IT" is the expectation from DeLeo's predominanlty liberal non gun-owning electorate that passing another law will help solve the problem. The fact that, following in the footsteps of all of the laws already on the books that have failed to date, another law won't solve the problem and simultaneously uphold the right to bear arms. However, when you're a legislator (carpenter), every problem is a lack of legislation (nail), and every solution is a law (hammer). Insurance? Brilliant. We have mandatory insurance for healthcare (a whole 'nother story), and mandatory insurance for driving a car. The fact that neither medical care nor transportation are recognized as rights in the constitution is a fact that the proponents of this idiocy blithely ignore. I am wholely in favor of completing an application for a license to carry a firearm. I am wholely in favor of the NICS check that is part of the approval process of the application. I approve of fingerprinting, and additional NICS checks when I buy a firearm. These things are examples of the "reasonable controls" mentioned in Heller v. D.C. With these in place in Massachusetts, it is hard for me to envision any further controls as reasonable.
A lucid, comprehensive, articulate argument if I ever heard one. One that will fall on deaf ears however.
Truly sad, Rich. The rest of the country does fine without most of this nonsense. Conneticut has "tough" gun laws. I wonder, does DeLeo plan on going house to house to search for those terrible nasty wicked preban 30 round magazines? Oh, wait, he would order MEN WITH EVIL BLACK GUNS to do that for him. But he won't, instead, he will just turn otherwise ordinary people into FELONS. They couldn't become felons in many other states, but here, in the Spirit of America state, anything is possible. And then people think some of the progunners are nutz when they talk about government running amuck and becoming tyrannical?
His statement that he has to do something about IT does not refer to the gun problem. IT in politician talk means furthering HIS chances of reelection. He believes this is what his constituents want, so he has to do IT, nevermind what IT is, IT is what gets him reelected. You will note that DeLeo was never concerned that Police Departments have as a matter of policy violated M.G.L. by taking up to a year to issue a valid firearms license, when the law states 40 days. Nope, he is all about doing IT, unfortunately, some of us are going to have IT done to us. It has become so blatant that a suit has been filed against the Police Chief of Everett. We all know where that is going. In a few short years, I will be leaving this state, I was only visiting anyway. But after being here a few years, I now know the true meaning of "Go west young man!"
I wonder, is he going to attempt an actual "gun grab"? Have they become that bold in this state? They really do need to change the license plate in this state. Spirit of America? When DeLeo says he has do SOMETHING? Just to get his name in the ring?