Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
BOSTON – A plaintiff in the case challenging the state's 1998 assault weapon ban plans to decide "pretty shortly" if they will appeal a federal judge's ruling that upheld the law.
Jim Wallace, executive director of the Gun Owners Action League, said his organization and the other plaintiffs in the suit against Attorney General Maura Healey have 30 days after the ruling, which was filed Thursday, to respond if they decide to appeal. They have not yet made a decision, he said.
"We'll be having those conversations pretty soon, I guess," Wallace told the News Service. He said he met with attorneys Monday morning to discuss the timeframe and other details.
In January 2017, GOAL joined with individual gun owners and retailers to sue Healey, Gov. Charlie Baker, the Massachusetts State Police and Public Safety and Security Secretary Daniel Bennett, arguing that between the ban and a July 2016 crackdown by Healey on copies or duplicates of forbidden guns, "Massachusetts effectively bans the acquisition of the most popular rifles in the nation."
On Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge William Young filed a 47-page order that said the AR-15 "and its analogs, along with high capacity magazines, are simply not weapons within the original meaning of the individual constitutional right to 'bear Arms.'"
"In the absence of federal legislation, Massachusetts is free to ban these weapons and large capacity magazines," Young wrote. "Other states are equally free to leave them unregulated and available to their law-abiding citizens. These policy matters are simply not of constitutional moment."
Wallace said the ruling could have repercussions beyond gun laws.
"I'm very concerned about some of the discussion in this judge's decision about pretty much giving the Attorney General's Office blanket authority to do whatever they want, it appears," Wallace said. "I think people who may be celebrating this decision need to take a closer look at that language, separate from the gun issue."
He said, "If the next attorney general isn't necessarily your friend, imagine what they can do by just reinterpreting two words in a law."
Young rejected the plaintiffs' argument that Healey's 2016 enforcement notice targeting copies or duplicates of banned weapons was overly vague.
Speaking at a Victim Rights Month award ceremony on Monday, Healey drew applause from the crowd when she mentioned winning the case. She said the assault weapon ban was a "crucial" law "inspired by parents of victims in Massachusetts that still helps, thanks to the court's decision, keep us a little safer from gun violence."
On Friday, at a press conference in her office, Healey called the order "a big victory for Massachusetts and a victory for everyone who has worked so hard to keep our communities and our schools safe from these weapons of war."
"The decision says that we the people of Massachusetts have the right to protect ourselves by banning these weapons and it makes clear that my office has the authority to enforce the law," she said.
The National Rifle Association's Institute for Legislative Action, in a statement issued Friday night, called that assessment "outrageous," noting that Scalia could not refute it. GOAL is the NRA's Massachusetts affiliate.
"Justice Scalia's position on the question of whether the AR-15 is protected by the Second Amendment is clear," the statement said. "In the 2015 Friedman v. City of Highland Park case, Justice Scalia joined a dissent which stated that the decision by millions of Americans to own AR-style rifles for lawful purposes 'is all that is needed for citizens to have a right under the Second Amendment to keep such weapons.' As long as politicians and judicial officials continue to flout the law in order to advance a political agenda, the five million members of the NRA will be here to hold them accountable."
Officials at the NRA said they are ready to assist the plaintiffs and their attorneys "in any way possible" as they review their options going forward.