In Massachusetts, it seems the governor can unilaterally decide that a law set to go into effect on a given date can be made to go into effect immediately if she thinks it’s an emergency.

And she did.

The law was, of course, a gun control law and Gov. Maura Healey seemed to think the law needed to go into effect right away. The real emergency was that pro-gun groups were working to overturn the law before it could, which was why she used the emergency preamble. Earlier today, in fact, The Civil Rights Coalition dropped off close to 100,000 signatures calling for a repeal of Chapter 135, which would have been more than enough to block the law from being enforced until a referendum takes place in 2026… except that Healey signed that “emergency” preamble and put the law in place immediately. 

But the truth of the matter is that no one was ready for the rollout of Chapter 135 and now, there’s an absolute trainwreck happening. So what’s the payoff? Feelings, apparently.

22-year-old Caroline Spire, an advertising major at Boston University from Pennsylvania, said that she feels safer on campus with stricter gun legislation. 

“As a student in the past four years or so, I always figured that gun violence on campus was just an inevitable rather than a what-if situation,” Spire said. 

Spire also said that expediting this law does make her feel safer going to campus. She said she doesn’t have to go to campus assuming that at some point there will be a lockdown and that she will be in lethal danger. 

…

34-year-old Vinny Sudre, owner of SDW LLC firearms store in Easton, Massachusetts, said he’s not pleased with the new legislation. Sudre said he has lost 80% of his customers since the emergency preamble in October. His sales have decreased and this week he is paying to be open.

“I got to jump through more hoops just to make a sale,” Sudre said. He said that the bill isn’t clear to him regarding what he can sell or do and asserted that his customers are also confused by this law.

“Right now I’m stuck selling revolvers and pistols because that’s the only clear thing I can still sell,” Sudre said.

Sudre said that automatic shotguns for hunting are hard to sell. “It is banned, you can’t buy a semi-automatic shotgun. It’s ridiculous. You can’t even practice your Second Amendment,” Sudre said. 

That’s right, boys and girls, semi-auto shotguns are verboten in Massachusetts.

The state police issued a statement saying gun dealers could keep selling anything that wasn’t considered an “assault weapon,” but under this law, a lot of people’s preferred hunting shotguns qualify as just that. That’s why Sudre says he can’t really sell long guns. Sure, bolt actions and lever actions are probably OK, but then again, does anyone really want to risk it?

Probably not.

Of course, the piece goes on to quote a professor at Boston University who is absolutely convinced that this law could withstand judicial scrutiny. Under Bruen, I find that belief laughable. While Rahimi muddied the waters quite a bit, it didn’t do enough to justify banning an entire category of firearms just because you are uncomfortable with people owning them.

But I will grant Massachusetts credit on one thing. They may have finally woken some Fudds up from their believe that their hunting guns won’t be banned. After all, a lot of hunting weapons are now illegal in Massachusetts, even ones that aren’t likely to ever be used in a mass shooting or other criminal offense.