The "Yes on 9" campaign lobbying to keep Massachusetts' latest round of restrictive gun laws in place has based its argument on one thing: safety.
There's a big problem with that messaging, though. According to a new survey of Boston residents, most folks feel less safe in the city's downtown than they did a year ago, even with all of those new gun laws that are supposedly meant to protect them.
The Downtown Boston Neighborhood Association released its 2026 Downtown Boston Public Safety Survey Friday, based on responses from nearly 400 people.
Fifty-six percent of respondents said they feel less safe downtown and on Boston Common than they did at the beginning of the year. That’s up from 34% in 2025, but lower than the 71% in 2024.
Ninety percent of respondents rated downtown public safety a 7 to 10 on a scale of urgency, while 45% called for a more visible police presence.
Drug activity remained the top concern, followed by homelessness and loitering. But the share of respondents who cited violent crime as a concern nearly tripled, rising from 7% in 2025 to 20% this year.
Boston Common and the Park Street corridor also remained the area most frequently identified by respondents as needing attention.
Chapter 135 hasn't done anything about the open-air drug use or the number of homeless individuals, but it wasn't billed as a solution to those problems. It was, however, touted as a necessary change to the state's already restrictive gun laws, and yet the number of respondents who say they're concerned about violent crime has soared instead of plummeted.
Maybe that's because Chapter 135 hasn't done anything to really address violent criminal behavior. Oh sure, a licensed gun owner can now have their firearms confiscated after a police chief revokes their firearm permit, rather than waiting until their appeal has been denied as was the practice in the past. More people can petition the courts for a "red flag" order, and there are scores of new laws limiting what guns can be lawfully purchased, used for hunting, and transported, among other things. There are, however, no increased punishments for repeat, violent offenders contained within Chapter 135.
Still, violent crime is trending down across the country, and it's not uncommon for surveys to show a majority of respondents believe crime is going up when it's actually going down. Is that the case here?
Nope. According to Crime Index, violent crime in Boston has increased two percent this year, with more robberies and aggravated assaults than we saw at this point in 2025. Residents aren't imagining things when they tell pollsters that they feel less safe than they did a year ago.
Supporters of Chapter 135 might argue that things would be even worse without all of new restrictions Democrats imposed, but there's no way to prove it. And again, it's not like Massachusetts was some lawless environment before Chapter 135. The state still had some of the most restrictive gun laws in the nation, and the highest level of violent crime in New England as well.
The No On 9 campaign faces long odds in a state as hostile to gun owners as Massachusetts, but they do have a few things going for them, including a grassroots army of volunteers and a recognition by at least some residents that, despite the Democrats' promise of increased safety, they're less safe than they were a year ago.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their extreme gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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