Two years ago, Mass. passed strict new gun laws. Will voters undo them on Tuesday?
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Massachusetts Ballot Questions 8 and 9: Marijuana and firearms
The last two questions on this year’s ballot are asking Massachusetts voters if they want to go back in time. (Video by Jenna Perlman and Maria Pemberton/Globe Staff.)
Voters will be presented with the existing law and asked whether they want to uphold it.
A “yes” vote on Question 9 would keep the existing law in place. A “no” vote would repeal it.
For Second Amendment activists seeking to reduce firearms restrictions, the ballot question is somewhat of a test case in deep blue Massachusetts. A win at the ballot box, they hope, would spur a nationwide retreat from new gun regulations.
“It’s our modern-day midnight ride, if you will,” said Toby Leary, owner of Cape Gun Works in Hyannis and chair of the campaign to repeal the 2024 law. He said the existing restrictions stretch well beyond reasonable firearms regulations, infringing upon people’s constitutional rights.
Leary and his group argue state lawmakers should focus on targeting illegal gun use, rather than making lawful gun owners jump through unnecessary hoops.
“A lot of people are starting to see that no matter how many laws you pass, you’re not going to change the heart of a criminal,” he said.
Supporters of the existing law say it’s about saving lives, and elected officials have long boasted of having one of the lowest gun death rates in the country.
Voters will be asked to consider whether to keep something in place that’s “already part of the fabric of how we keep folks safe in Massachusetts,” said Ruth Zakarin, chair of the campaign to uphold the law.
Toby Leary, a gun shop owner and Second Amendment advocate, when he announced in 2024 that firearms activists collected enough signatures to place a question on the Massachusetts ballot that would repeal the state’s sweeping gun law. Steve LeBlanc/AP Photo/Steve LeBlanc
In conversations with voters across the state, Zakarin said, she’s hearing a “pretty constant refrain that we need to do everything possible to keep our communities safe from gun violence.”
She cited research that shows states with the highest rates of gun death are those with weaker gun violence prevention laws and higher rates of gun ownership.
Democrats in the Legislature pushed to tighten the state’s firearm restrictions after a 2022 Supreme Court decision struck down a New York law requiring applicants to prove a “special need” before getting a license to carry a firearm in public.
Supporters of the state’s existing law say it still preserves a legal pathway to gun ownership, while making it harder for someone with a history of violence to access firearms.
In addition to regulating ghost guns — or untraceable weapons often made at home from 3-D printed parts — the law introduced new training and licensing mandates, including requiring applicants to take a basic firearms safety course that covers secure gun storage, suicide prevention education, disengagement tactics, and live-fire training.
In the months after Governor Maura Healey signed the law in July 2024, Leary and his coalition collected tens of thousands of signatures to place the referendum on the ballot.
The campaign said at the time that it had also collected enough signatures to suspend the statute until this fall’s vote, but Healey used her executive power that October to declare the law an “emergency,” effectively blocking advocates from pausing it.
The campaign has relied on donations from local gun clubs as well as Smith & Wesson, a weapons manufacturer founded in Springfield, which announced in 2021 that it was moving its headquarters to Tennessee, in part because of proposed legislation in Massachusetts. Company leaders said at the time that they were “left with no choice but to relocate these functions to a state that does not propose burdensome restrictions on our company.”
Across New England, voters and lawmakers have largely opted not to undo gun control laws, and in some cases, to strengthen them, though debates have been lively.
Last year, Maine voters approved a “red flag law” that allows a judge to temporarily restrict access to guns, building on another law passed in the wake of the 2023 deadly mass shooting in Lewiston. In New Hampshire, state lawmakers battled this year over legislation that would have blocked public colleges and universities from prohibiting weapons on their campuses. The bill ultimately died last month.
The Massachusetts proposal to repeal one of its landmark gun laws is unusual in this year’s election cycle. Experts both for and against the referendum said they were unaware of any similar statewide repeal efforts happening in the country this year.
Chris Van Buskirk of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
Lea Skene can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on X @lea_skene.
