Dear Friends,
You are invited to attend a public hearing concerning access to guns, held by Massachusetts’ Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security, next Thursday, Nov. 16 at 11am in State House Hearing Room A-1. Please come make your voice heard and help keep Massachusetts the safest state in the nation. Please save the date to come and support gun violence prevention (wear your orange t-shirts if you have them!). Click for hearing details and click “A-1” on this page for directions to the Hearing Room.
If you can’t make it to the State House, please call the committee members today at 617-722-1485 (Senate) & 617-722-2230 (House), in regards to the following legislation: support S1292 (data collection on multiple gun purchases); oppose S1317 & S1340 (silencers), H1296 (prohibits cities and towns from passing any laws regulating guns), H1284 & S1326 (stripping Attorney General Maura Healey of her power to prosecute illegal guns). Also, please call and email your legislators today regarding the legislation to be heard.
At this hearing, the Joint Committee will be hearing dozens of gun bills. Despite the public’s distaste for loosening gun regulations, the majority of these bills are straight out of the NRA’s playbook: deregulating silencers, taking away the Attorney General’s power to regulate firearms like other consumer products, doing away with our assault weapon ban, and more.
You can be sure that–despite the recent tragedies in Las Vegas and Texas–members of the Massachusetts NRA Affiliate, GOAL, will be showing up in large numbers to push for easier access to guns and silencers, and less accountability for gun manufacturers. Your presence in support of gun violence prevention will speak volumes, nobody is required to testify.
More information about the hearing and a complete list of the bills to be heard can be found here. And more information about all the gun-related bills introduced in Massachusetts can be found here. Stay tuned for more details.
Finally, we want to remind everyone that Giving Tuesday is 3 weeks away! Please consider directing your generosity toward preventing gun violence this year on Tuesday, November 28. You can donate early here.
Thank you!
The Stop Handgun Violence Team