MA gun owners getting shafted... again.

[-..__...]

I've been anticipating this. Looks like I'll be back on the phone and knocking on a few doors at the State House in the very near future.

"An aim on gun control: State Rep. Barrios says laws must be reinforced
By Claudia Torrens / News Staff Writer
Thursday, April 15, 2004

Insisting the state's assault weapons ban would be left in legal limbo if federal restrictions are allowed to lapse in September, state Sen. Jarret Barrios yesterday stressed the importance of Massachusetts reinforcing its own measures.
"Massachusetts has an assault weapons ban but has no definitions" other than those provided in the decade-old federal legislation due to expire in September unless extended by Congress, Barrios said during a meeting with News editors.
The Massachusetts measures, passed in 1998, are the toughest in the nation, with a lifetime weapons ban on anyone convicted of a violent crime"...

http://www.milforddailynews.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=45851

[Superfly]

1. "assault weapons ban but has no definitions"

Translation: We have a law banning assault weapons, but we don't know what they are.

[iverglas]

4. probable real translation

Translation: We have a law banning assault weapons, but we don't know what they are.

Having some considerable expertise in such matters (which does of course not make me more equal than anyone else) ... although not having seen the legislation, and therefore just making an educated guess ...

I'd guess that the Massachusetts legislation uses the federal legislation's definition, via a technique known in the legislative drafting biz as "incorporation by reference". The Massachusetts legislation would just set out where to find the federal legislative definition it is adopting, rather than spelling the definition out.

If the thing to which the reference is made -- i.e. the federal definition -- disappears, then the provision in the legislation that refers to it is pretty much blank.

I gather that the Massachusetts legislator in question (hmm, a Democrat maybe?) wants to eliminate the incorporation by reference, and insert a definition in the state legislation itself.

Looks like a matter of form rather than substance, to me.

.

[Superfly]

5. Hmmm...gotcha...

My question is, why would the MA legislature have a law incorporating a federal reference that had a high probability of being temporary? Why didn't they just "copy and paste" the reference as stated in the federal regulation without incorporating the reference?

[slackmaster]

10. Either laziness or lack of foresight

Perhaps it never occurred to them that the federal AWB might really expire as it was intended to do. I wouldn't be surprised if no member of the MA legislature bothered to read the federal law.

http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/921.html

[iverglas]

12. one possible explanation

Why didn't they just "copy and paste" the reference as stated in the federal regulation without incorporating the reference?

When one jurisdiction decides to incorporate something legislated by another jurisdiction, it sometimes wants to incorporate any changes made by that other jurisdiction.

It might say something about incorporating a definition as it reads "from time to time". In any event, using incorporation by reference essentially allows the first jurisdiction to amend its own legislation without having to go through the rigamarole of the amending process, whenever it is happy to just adopt whatever the other jurisdiction does. One reason for that would be a desire for uniformity in certain areas.


That said, I read the article and notice that there are some substantive changes being proposed as well. My comment referred only to the change in form, and wasn't intended to mean that no substantive changes were being proposed.

.

[FatSlob]

16. Very good explanation.

Thank you, Iverglas. I appreciate it.

[iverglas]

18. yer welcome

It was a thing that might not have been clear from the article, to anyone who isn't familiar with the tricks of the trade, and so it was a good question too.

.

[Superfly]

19. Thanks....I try...

really, I *do*

[FatSlob]

20. OK, now we can argue ceaselessly about the ban!

J/K...I don't feel up for that today!

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[MrBenchley]

2. Good for Massachusetts

"Massachusetts is one of the states with the toughest gun control laws and those laws are working," said McQuilken. "Assault weapons are used for one purpose: to kill as many people as quickly as possible. Allowing them would be a gigantic step into the wrong direction."

Amen to that.

[slackmaster]

3. Nonsense

This guy is obviously gunning for human targets.



:freak:

[MallRat]

6. Angus McQuilken

Good guy who recently lost a special election to take Cheryl Jacques' seat in the State Senate. Jacques was my state senator, and McQuilken ran to take her seat.

Unfortunately, the election coincided with the gay marriage debate. Jacques is a lesbian and a vocal supporter of GLB rights, and McQuilken was opposed to the constitutional amendment as well. The Republican candidate, state Rep. Scott Brown, filled the void as the "anti-gay marriage" candidate, and the election was decided largely on the basis of that one issue alone.

The senate district runs through some socially conservative towns like Wrentham and North Attleborough. Long story short: on a day when Massachusetts Democrats were flocking to the polls to vote in the Presidential Primary for John Kerry, Brown still managed to get enough GOP voters to win the seat by a slim margin.

-MR

[RhodaGrits]

8. The problem with the gun control laws

per the family/friends I'm arguing with is that the banned weapons are so poorly defined that as one friend said "it made my .22 squirrel rifle , a lever action, BTW, an assault weapon b/c it has a magazine for 19 shots . it happens to be a tubular mag and thats how many fit." They then point out these ludicrous inconsistencies as why the whole law should be scrapped. If the lawmakers would work out a realistic ban on the bad weapons, many of these anti-gun law guys would be less antagonistic because many of them ARE in involved in law enforcement and they don't want to be on the receiving end of an automatic weapon either. Bush is supporting a renewal of the assault weapons ban so I'm not sure what's their problem with Kerry.

[slackmaster]

11. I hope you are aware

That the federal "assault weapons ban" has nothing to do with automatic weapons.

[RhodaGrits]

23. No, I'm not sure what it is about anymore - the right keeps sending me to

some anti-clinton gun ban site and I've yet to find any clear definition of the law that isn't propaganda. Can you steer me toward one that is written for the gun novice?

[slackmaster]

24. You might try reading the actual text of the United States Code

It's pretty straightforward, certainly an order of magnitude less convoluted than California gun laws.

http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/921.html

Search for the word "assault" and see where it takes you.

Note that fully automatic weapons (known as "machineguns" in the code) are treated quite differently from Semiautomatic Assault Weapons.

The BATFE's site has some useful information as well.

http://www.atf.gov/firearms/index.htm

Machineguns have been strictly regulated since 1934, and the use of legally owned automatic weapons in crime is almost unheard of since then.

It's a very common misperception (one deliberately propagated by a few gun control zealots) that expiration of the federal AWB will result in a proliferation of fully automatic military weapons on the streets of USAmerica. In truth, "semiautomatic assault weapon" is an arbitrary legal definition intended to cover a subset of civilian sporting arms which resemble modern military arms, and are based on the same operating principles. But there really aren't very many ways to make a semiautomatic firearm work; many common arms that few would disagree are intended for sporting are based on the same actions.

[Superfly]

13. What's a "bad weapon"

without a *bad* person's intervention, a weapon is just an object, neither good nor bad.

[MrBenchley]

14. That's a common line of crap

"Nobody knows what an assault weapon is except we who love them."

Check out the actual law at Thomas. It is quite specific and contains no inconsistencies.

[slackmaster]

15. That's a common Straw Man

That anyone on this board has ever said "Nobody knows what an assault weapon is except we who love them."

[FatSlob]

17. A straw man argument? Here? Never!

[papau]

21. I got a letter from MA re my conceal carry permit - must be renewed &

there is another fee and a couple of time off from work visits to the Town's police station.

They have my fingerprints and photo and background check and 3 letters from "important folks that will and did say all is well if I have a permit" - so why can't the permit be renewed by a simple mailing in of a check?

I hate the time off from work for new photo nonsense.

[Romulus]

22. welcome to the reality of "may issue"

You are experiencing what some of us here have been bemoaning about "maybe issue" systems - bogus roadblocks and hassle of citizens who are otherwise off the radar of law enforcement.

Wager your ALP gets restricted to "target only" this time? ;)