GOAL files suit challenging Commonwealth’s New “Assault-Style Firearms” Restrictions
Gun Owners’ Action League (GOAL) along with The National Rifle Association (NRA) have filed a challenge to the Commonwealth’s restrictions on so-called “assault-style” firearms as defined by Chapter 135 of the Acts of 2024. Alongside GOAL, the plaintiffs include a retired Environmental Police Captain, two surgeons, a retired prosecutor, and Pioneer Valley Arms, an FFL operating out of East Longmeadow, MA. The attorneys of record on the case are Jay Porter of Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP and Jason Guida serving as local counsel.
GOAL initially held off pursuing this action in federal court as Snope v. Brown and Ocean State Tactical v. Rhode Island were already pending before the Supreme Court. Had those cases been heard, they could have had significant impact or even resolved numerous issues one way or the other. At the time there was no sense in spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on our own case if the matter would have been decided. Unfortunately, the Court did not hear those cases.
“Once again the lawful citizens of the Commonwealth have to spend their hard-earned money to fight back against the bigotry the 2A community faces here,” said Jim Wallace Executive Director of GOAL. “It is unconscionable that a post Bruen legislature would pass laws that essentially make every gun owner in Massachusetts a ‘felon in waiting’.”
The Massachusetts Legislature changed the Commonwealth’s “assault weapons” restrictions in 2024 as part of their overhaul of the state’s gun laws (Ch. 135 of the Acts of 2024). The changes attempt to codify then Attorney General Maura Healey’s 2016 “reinterpretation” of the “assault weapons” ban. The new law also established a new “features test” that drastically increased the number of banned semi-automatic firearms with certain features.
This is GOAL’s first challenge to the Commonwealth’s “assault-style” firearms restrictions since Worman v. Healey was denied a writ of certiorari by the US Supreme Court in 2020. That case was a challenge to the previous version of the law; this new challenge will go directly against the provisions of Chapter 135. Given Justice Kavanaugh’s prediction in Snope v. Brown that the court would likely take up the matter “in the next session or two,” this is a big step toward eliminating these unconstitutional laws in Massachusetts.
