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Northborough, MA - November 3, 2017

Yesterday, the Massachusetts legislature came to an agreement on legislation to ban bump stocks and other devices. The final version of the budget bill includes an outright ban on bump stocks and trigger cranks, but does not ban firearms designed to be fired by crank, such as antique Gatling Guns. 

“I am disappointed with the entire legislative process, or more precisely, the lack of process that was put forth with this legislation,” said Jim Wallace, Executive Director of GOAL.

“From the beginning this process was flawed, the ban language was added to the budget bill as amendments, this caused such an uproar that it brought the legislation to a standstill, and now MA residents will suffer increased financial stress because of this.”

Wallace also noted that normal process was not followed, “the other thing that really bothered our members, there was no public hearing on this legislation, they scheduled it days after both the house and senate amended the budget bill with their bans.”

GOAL members were very active throughout this process and remained in constant contact with committee members and their legislators, “this made a huge difference” notes Wallace, “we most likely would be looking at a much different bill than we are today, without the hard work of GOAL members. To be clear, I am not at all happy with this bill. It makes no sense to ban bump stock possession from someone who can legally own a machine gun; this is after all a piece of plastic and a spring.  The legislature should have left a path to ownership and now needs to provide guidance for people who legally purchased these devices before this ban.”

The legislation is currently awaiting Governor Baker’s signature, please see our alert regarding vetoing the language elsewhere in this email.

GOAL greatly appreciates the effort put forth by our membership and our friends on the hill, who worked tirelessly to stop the draconian house version, which was no easy task.