This hearing is what one would call a “catch-all” hearing where all of the bills relating to one topic, in this case firearms, are taken up at the same event. Any bill filed by the deadline at the beginning of the session are guaranteed a hearing and that is what this hearing will be. However, the Committee holding this hearing on a Friday holiday maintains the pattern of disrespect the legislature’s leadership shows for the Second Amendment Civil Rights of the Commonwealth’s citizens. Even with a new House Chairman, the contempt from the Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security continues with this hearing. The previous session saw this hearing occur on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving…meet the new boss.

The Massachusetts legislature seems to take every opportunity it can to make Second Amendment advocacy at the State House difficult directly in opposition to Justice Thomas’s words in Bruen that the Second Amendment not be treated as a “second-class right.” Throughout the previous legislative session and earlier, we were treated to all the disrespect they could muster. Whether it was stuffing their “Bruen response language” into a Judicial Technology Bond Bill in July of 2022 we saw it, or scheduling the “listening tour” equating every bad thing under the sun with firearm ownership we saw it, or using legislative dirty tricks to get an unpopular bill to the floor, we saw it. We saw it again when the House filed their final version of the bill on July 17th at 8PM, for a vote on July 18th at 1PM.

Come make your voice heard and tell the Committee and the Legislature that we are tired of being treated like second-class citizens. If they want to come at us, at least do it on equal footing.