Mass. gun violence prevention advocates form campaign to oppose gun law repeal effort

A group of gun violence prevention advocates launched a campaign Monday to convince voters to keep in place a major gun law that gun owners and Second Amendment rights supporters are attempting to repeal through the statewide elections The Vote Yes for a Safe Massachusetts campaign slammed gun rights groups trying to repeal the law as extremists who are looking to upend a lifesaving law in its entirety Critics of the law have mentioned it is an overreach of governmental powers while supporters contend it creates safer communities Massachusetts Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence Executive Director Ruth Zakarin announced strong policies in the state are working to keep people safe from gun violence and the bill approved last year helps lower the rate of gun deaths I think for me it s about making sure that people understand the role that these kinds of laws play in decreasing rates of gun violence and nothing that s in the law is taking people s rights away Zakarin notified the Herald Legal gun owners still have a right to have their legal guns That does not change Toby Leary owner of Cape Gun Works and head of the group trying to repeal the law The Civil Rights Coalition did not directly respond to a Herald inquiry Monday morning But the social media account for The Civil Rights Coalition blasted the new campaign Restricting non-resident junior hunting has nothing to do with stopping violent crime We look forward to multiple debates and forums to help educate voters the coalition disclosed The way to stop violent crime is to lock up violent criminals and not re-release them to the streets Leary and his group collected more than signatures last year to place a question on the ballot asking voters to repeal the expansive gun law The amount of signatures the group gathered would have been enough to at once suspend the law until the polling but Gov Maura Healey used executive action to straightaway implement the statute by declaring it an urgency measure The gun law is sweeping It bans people under from owning semiautomatic rifles or shotguns takes aim at so-called ghost guns by requiring the serialization of all firearms and bars system that turns semiautomatic weapons into fully automatic ones The law also implemented a host of new training and licensing requirements Other parts of the statute govern inspections of firearms dealers establishment of a new firearms control advisory board and notifications related to applications for civil commitments and the expiration of harassment prevention orders Opponents of the law are also pursuing multiple lawsuits in local and federal courts Juanita Batchelor the executive director of the Darrell Lee Jenkins Jr Reservoir Center in Springfield is another member of Vote Yes for a Safe Massachusetts Batchelor announced the firearms procedures is critical to reducing gun violence in Western Massachusetts Springfield is my home it is where I lost my son and it is where I work to ensure that no other mom has to experience such a loss We must protect this vital law from repeal and we must do everything we can to keep our communities and our children safe from gun violence Batchelor mentioned in a announcement