Massachusetts is a pretty anti-gun state, though they haven’t been making quite the same moves with gun control that California, New Jersey, or New York have been making.

They’ve generally been pretty content with what they’ve got, which is plenty, let me tell you.

But following the Bruen decision, a few things in their gun control apple cart got upset, so lawmakers went to work trying to find new and interesting ways to screw gun owners.

The problem for them is gun owners in Massachusetts aren’t thrilled with their latest work.

Democrat Rep. Michael Day of Stoneham presented “An Act Modernizing Firearm Laws”, a 140-page proposal that promises to “stem the flow of illegal firearms into the Commonwealth and increase protections from gun violence for our communities.”

The bill rewrites licensing procedures, revamps regulations for training and selling firearms, and expands the law regarding Extreme Risk Protection Orders, also known as “red flag laws.” It also cracks down on so-called “ghost guns,” or untraceable firearms. According to Day, the Boston Police Dept. reported a 280 percent increase in the number of recovered ghost guns between 2019 and 2021. The new bill would require a gun’s receiver and barrel be registered and serialized and make it a crime to build and sell untraceable guns.

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But gun rights advocates and second amendment groups say the bill goes too far and over-complicates an already complicated system.

“It’s so overwhelming, no lawful citizen would be able to comply if this passes. Nobody,” said Jim Wallace, Executive Director of the Gun Owners’ Action League. With around 19,000 members, Wallace said GOAL is the largest gun owners’ advocacy group in Massachusetts.

“These laws are more convoluted. They didn’t streamline the process like they said they were going to do,” Wallace said.

Day claims the law does the opposite, that it simplifies the law. It doesn’t and the truth is that barrels typically don’t have serial numbers, so Wallace is absolutely correct.

The other problem is, it’s the wrong approach in the first place.

First, let’s look at so-called ghost guns. Anti-gunners like to throw out “280 percent increase” without providing any actual context, and context matters.

If the total numbers to start with were very low, then it’s not very difficult to hit that 280 percent mark without it representing an actual problem.

Especially because Massachusetts actually does have enough traditionally made firearms in criminal hands as it is, regardless of the gun control laws previously on the books.

Further, banning so-called ghost guns isn’t going to work because you can just 3d print a receiver. The other items are just parts that are readily available.

Then we have red flag laws, which are nothing more than just an excuse to take someone’s gun because someone said something another party didn’t like for whatever reason. While there are people who are in crisis and likely don’t need a gun, what they need is treatment, which they don’t get under these laws.

A lot of other people who get hit with these are people who riled someone up over some kind of a disagreement and the other party just wants to get even.

All in all, what’s happening in Massachusetts is a trainwreck in the making, and that’s if what Day is saying is 100 percent correct. Since it’s unlikely that it’s actually right, this bill should die a fiery death in the fires of Mount Doom.