Massachusetts AG told: Gun directive is a 'whole new law'

[TeddyR]

Last edited Wed Jul 27, 2016, 11:01 AM - Edit history (1)

So Healey's unilateral decision to ban firearms that aren't actually banned by Massachusetts' assault weapons law has drawn a rebuke from 58 lawmakers, including 14 Democrats:

Angered by her announcement last week that her office will step up its enforcement of the state's assault weapons ban, a bipartisan group of 58 lawmakers sent Attorney General Maura Healey a letter over the weekend opposing "in the strongest possible terms" her decision and the way she announced it.

Healey last week announced that she will crack down on enforcement of the state's 1998 assault weapons ban, specifically focusing on what she called "copycat" versions or duplicates of firearms banned under that law.

A gun qualifies as a forbidden copycat if it is "substantially similar in construction and configuration" to one of the banned guns or has interchangeable key parts, according to the enforcement notice.

"For the last 18 years, the law has been implemented and enforced consistently, both by your office and your predecessors," the legislators wrote. "Your new directive, which has been presented by your office as nothing more than a closing of 'loopholes' in the current law, appears in fact to be much more than that: the enforcement of a whole new law that unfairly infringes on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding gun owners in Massachusetts."

More here - http://www.telegram.com/article/20160725/NEWS/160729463

[Nuclear Unicorn]

1. From the nature of her actions her concern for the wishes of the legislature seem minimal, at best.

[NaturalHigh]

3. My thought exactly.

[Eleanors38]

4. Exactly. Just another fiat issued in a culture war.

[Duckhunter935]

2. Lol. nt

[Eleanors38]

5. A well-balanced meal in GD should include this dietary supplement...

Since it gives a crystal-clear look at how people organize to protect their rights, which should be instructive to ALL:

An AG issues fiat-as-legislation.

Protests (including hundreds personally at the capitol) ensue.

Legislature announces the AG's action "infringes on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding gun owners in...

MASSACHUSETTS."

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

6. Maybe, because they're LEGISLATORS, they know something about...

...making laws and what is and isn't a law. Interpretation of laws is the business of the courts.

I guess if the AG makes the laws based on the preferences of the office, the laws will be easy to enforce.