We've had a slew of coverage concerning the so-called “Bruen response” law recently enacted by the hand of Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, going back to the alleged “listening” tour hosted by Representative Micahel Day in 2023. Day allegedly authored the original bill. The listening tour is a misnomer, as very little listening came.

 Since the enactment of the law in late July (and slated to come into effect in October), a contingent of Massachusetts gun owners filed a petition to put the law up to a ballot measure. According to our friends at Gun Owners Action League, the Bay State attorney general is seeking input from “interested parties” on the effort, and that includes a whole slew of anti-freedom cretins.

On August 12, 2024 the ten original signers to initiate a referendum petition to repeal Chapter 135 received an email from the Massachusetts Attorney General. (See Below) The email explained that the Secretary of the Commonwealth had asked the Attorney General to make a ruling on whether the proposed referendum complies with Article 48 of the Massachusetts Constitution. It is a very simple determination that the Attorney General should be capable of discerning in a few minutes. Instead, the Attorney General’s office has sought guidance on the matter from a host of outside sources, many of which likely had a hand in writing the new law.

The correspondence sent out by the attorney general is flummoxing because she’s soliciting input on the measure. The fact that the measure is being raised and signatures are being collected is all the input the state needs. Period. If the measure is successful and the signatures are gathered, it goes up to a vote. Now, that vote, whomever it favors, does not mean the law is constitutional – if it stands, however, a vote against the measure would show the administration that there’s no real appetite for these kinds of things.

We have to remember this is coming from Massachusetts, where their tradition concerning those who are different – gun owners in this case – are reconciled with society via the end of a rope. Not much has changed in the Bay State since the days of hanging witches, it’s just how they like to hang them.

The message from the attorney general read as follows:

As you may be aware, the Secretary of the Commonwealth has asked the Attorney General to opine whether the referendum filed on Chapter 135 of the Acts of 2024 (“An Act Modernizing Firearm Laws”) complies with the constitutional standards set forth for referenda in Amendment Article 48 of the Massachusetts Constitution. I will be coordinating the Attorney General’s review of that inquiry with my colleague Phoebe Fischer-Groban. You are receiving this email because you have been identified as a person or entity who may wish to provide input on the question whether Chapter 135 of the Acts of 2024 is a law that may be the subject of a referendum. Please be advised that the Attorney General’s review is limited to whether the law may be the subject of a referendum under Amendment Article 48, and will not extend to policy or other legal or constitutional considerations. In addition, the Attorney General is charged with preparing a “fair and concise summary” of the law.

Because this matter is time-sensitive, if you wish to provide input on the question whether this law may properly be the subject of a referendum, please do so by email on or before Wednesday, August 14, 2024. We appreciate your confining any input to the narrow legal question before us. We will also solicit input on our draft summary of the law when we are ready to do so; if you wish to submit your own draft summary for our consideration prior to that, please also do so ASAP. If you are aware of any other otherwise interested parties, please let me know so I can include them in this process, or feel free to forward this message to them.

Kindly reply-all with all future correspondence on these petitions, to facilitate an open process where you have the opportunity to respond to the other’s input, to the extent possible within our time constraints. And of course, please reach out with any questions about the process.

GOAL indicated that some of those carbon copied into the correspondence included representatives from the following groups, some of which are very anti-liberty:

• Mass Chiefs
• Fraternal Order of Police
• Massachusetts Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence
• Everytown
• Giffords
• Brady United
• Gary Klein Consulting (Former AG staffer who authored the 2016 AW piece.)
• MA Executive Office of Public Safety

Why this is happening at all is a mystery. 

“It is confusing that the Attorney General would be seeking opinions from the very people that likely wrote Chapter 135. The AGs only job right now is to determine if the petition meets Constitutional standards, which it clearly does,” said Jim Wallace Executive Director of GOAL and first signer of the referendum. “Why in the world would the AG need the input of anti-civil rights organizations to interpret a Constitution she is supposed to fully understand and protect?”

I spoke to Wallace yesterday evening when the organization sent out an email about this and he confirmed that all of those groups were in the email string. He re-expressed his confusion over the purpose of the email to me.

GOAL further noted in their statement, which I tend to agree with, that, “It would appear that the Attorney General is trying to find an excuse to deny the petition.” GOAL continued, “From her email she is likely looking for support from the anti-civil rights groups to back such a position. Like most of the history of Chapter 135, the bulk of the ‘process’ is questionable at best.”

Are forces in the Bay State trying to pull a fast one? They seem to be up to some sort of shenanigans.

We’ll be keeping a watchful eye on the happenings in the land where the shot heard around the world was fired. While Massachusetts is alleged to be one of the birthplaces of the Union, it’s also painfully obvious that it might be the death of liberty as well.

For some coverage on the contingent filing the paperwork to raise the petition, check out the latest episode of Riding Shotgun With Charlie featuring Mike Harris from GOAL (HERE, or in the embed below), as well as the coverage of the filing at the Hill (HERE, or in the embed below). 

[Editor's Note: You can also check out my interview with Toby Leary from Cape Gun Works on today's Bearing Arms Cam & Co embedded below, where Toby and I discuss Campbell's bizarre request as well as some anti-Second Amendment saber-rattling from Gov. Healey. - Cam]