A little more than two years after Gov. Maura Healey signed the sweeping Act Modernizing Firearm Laws, residents will have an opportunity to vote on whether to retain or scrap the comprehensive legislation. The effort to loosen gun regulations by way of referendum—Question 9 on the Nov. 3 ballot—is somewhat unique, and not because of the emotional issue at hand or high stakes.
Most ballot questions that voters face every two years are citizen-initiated measures that amend statutes to enact legislation if approved, including questions one-through-eight in next month’s election. Question 9, however, is an electoral oddball known as a veto referendum. Petitioners must clear several hurdles within a designated time frame, but if ultimately approved, a veto referendum repeals a law.
Massachusetts has only seen 22 veto referendums in the past century. Voters approved 10 of them, with the most recent attempt, in 2022, failing. In that case, people voted to uphold a bill removing proof of citizenship or immigration status for driver’s license applications. The last successful repeal was in 1994, when voters rejected legislation relating to student organization fees.
This year, a “yes” vote on Question 9 will uphold An Act Modernizing Firearm Laws. A “no” vote will un-modernize them, so to speak.
Current Massachusetts gun laws
The measure Question 9 seeks to repeal spurred widespread changes to gun regulation in the Bay State. Its provisions include: implementing real-time electronic registration; requiring serial numbers; creating penalties for untraceable arms like ghost and 3D-printed guns. The resulting law, one of the toughest in the country, also mandates basic firearms safety precautions and expands who can petition a court for an extreme risk protection order, which requires firearm surrender.
Calling it the “state’s most significant gun safety legislation in a decade,” Healey’s office explained at the time, “the bill was passed by the Legislature as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which sought to weaken states’ ability to protect their residents through gun safety laws.”
“Gun technology and trends are constantly evolving, and it’s important that our laws evolve along with them,” Lt. Governor Kim Driscoll said in a July 2024 statement. “This law will make our communities safer by preventing violence in the first place and improving law enforcement’s ability to respond to gun crimes.”
The grandstanding and strict new regulations also drew scrutiny, especially after the governor signed an emergency preamble, putting the enhancements into effect immediately. That prevented the law’s potential interim suspension via veto referendum, which could have otherwise put the modernizing act on ice until voters decide. Still, the law must survive this coming Election Day to stay intact on the books beyond 2026.
In the meantime, gun rights advocates have filed multiple lawsuits related to Healey’s augmentations, arguing for increased access. Some suits have been dropped, while others are still moving through the courts. In one development, CommonWealth Beacon reported that “in August, a federal judge in Boston upheld the provision that bars adults under 21 from possessing a handgun or semi-automatic firearm.”
Ghost guns and public data dashboards
By passing An Act Modernizing Firearm Laws, Massachusetts became the fifteenth state to regulate unserialized firearms, often called ghost guns. This regulation, along with the public firearms data dashboard, is perhaps the most contentious part of this legislation.
The changes, Healey said in 2024, “crack down on ghost guns and 3-D printed weapons, which I have long advocated for,” and “enhance our ability to prevent guns from falling into dangerous hands.”
Former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, a survivor of gun violence and longtime safety booster, even issued a comment on the bill, which she labeled a “comprehensive set of solutions” for “an evolving challenge.”
Ruth Zakarin, CEO of the Massachusetts Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence, echoed Healey’s sentiments two years ago, and maintains the position. She told the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism, “We cannot address a problem that we do not understand.”
“Having a data dashboard that can be accessed by anyone from law enforcement to researchers to community members is critically important for continuing to move this work forward and build policy and practice that is based on good data,” Zakarin said.
The ‘Yes on 9’ position
Gun safety activists support Healey’s 2024 move and consider her legislation an important step in bolstering the commonwealth’s regulations, particularly in the context of rollbacks on federal gun laws.
Chaired by Zakarin, Vote Yes for a Safe Massachusetts is leading the affirmative campaign. According to her, the standing legislation aims to implement guardrails for community safety.
“In the face of the federal government dismantling some of the policies that address guns and gun violence, what we do here in the commonwealth has never been more important,” Zakarin said. “There is nothing in this legislation that disrupts a legal pathway to gun ownership.
“It is not taking away people’s rights to legally own a gun; it is protecting folks’ rights to be safe. It’s about keeping our community safe, our schools safe, our children safe.”
Though Question 9 has been one of the lowest funded ballot referendums of the nine approved for this election cycle, there has nonetheless been more than a million dollars raised between the two sides. The “yes” side has taken in nearly $850,000, with $500,000 coming from the Massachusetts Teachers Association, and tens of thousands of additional dollars coming from other educator unions and reform groups like the Alliance for Gun Responsibility.
The ‘No on 9’ position
In 2024, the pro-gun Massachusetts Civil Rights Coalition submitted 93,229 signatures to the office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth, more than double the requirement threshold and enough to qualify for the 2026 ballot.
To the firearms proponents who stepped into action, mandated serialization and data collection equal unnecessary oversight. Richard Heywood, owner and instructor at Spirit-Led Defense in Brockton, said it is your right to make your own guns, and that “the law is not going to stop a criminal.”
“We just don’t want to be limited to what tools we can use to defend ourselves, because criminals are getting more technologically advanced in their strategies of victimizing people as well,” Heywood said. “It could be a very slippery slope when we start to allow government to regulate certain constitutional rights.”
According to Heywood, the legislation “creates an illusion of safety.” “Firearms aren’t going anywhere,” he said. “How about we teach people how to use them safely, and then penalize criminals who are using them in a negative manner and victimizing the community? … When consequences aren’t severe for the people who break the law, they get empowered to break it.”
He offered a specific Mass scenario.
“If you live in Boston, you could be waiting eight to 12 months to get your license, and if you lived in a city or a town like Bridgewater or Easton, you can get it in three weeks,” Heywood explained. “That creates, unfortunately, a disparity in access to a civil right, and ends up impacting different racial or ethnic groups more, or social classes more, because they tend to live in certain areas.”
The Civil Rights Coalition has raised about $508,000 to date, according to the Office of Campaign and Political Finance. Fifty-thousand of that came from the Tennessee-based Smith & Wesson Brands, with Massachusetts individuals and interests like gun clubs contributing the rest. Republican gubernatorial candidate Mike Minogue gave $5,000 to the cause, while a South Grafton-based company called Masshole Firearms pitched in $7,100.
Voters can view official election guide statements here.
This article is syndicated by the MassWire news service of the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism. If you want to see more reporting like this, sign up for BINJ’s free weekly newsletter at binj.news/signup.
