Attorney general launches new crackdown on rifles

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey announced Thursday the state will no longer tolerate the sale of semi-automatic "assault weapons," citing an old law passed in 1998 that made them illegal.

Since there is no widely agreed-upon definition of what an "assault weapon" consists of, gun manufacturers have been able to get around the state bans by creating “state compliant” versions of firearms.

They modify certain elements of the gun, perhaps removing flash suppressors or telescoping stocks that some states have banned.

Some liberal states have tried to undermine gun rights the same way conservative states have sought to weaken abortion rights, a little at a time by adopting rules and regulations.

Massachusetts is one of those states and its attorney general is aggressively stepping up her game.

"Gun manufacturers have manufactured these weapons as legal versions of prohibited guns," Healey said. "These weapons are illegal. They are copies or duplicates of banned weapons, and they cannot be bought or sold in Massachusetts."

Assault weapons come in all sizes, shapes and forms.

During her press conference Thursday, Healey claimed more than 300 letters went out to gun dealers in the state, informing them that all firearms deemed by the state to be "assault weapons" could no longer be sold and must be transferred out of state. People who already own these weapons will be "allowed" to keep them, at least for now.

"We put gun manufacturers and gun dealers on notice that we’re cracking down on the sale of illegal assault weapons," said Healey. "This is not a new law, this is not a new regulation. We’re just reminding people of what is the law and has been the law since 1998."

Seven states and the District of Columbia have enacted laws banning assault weapons: California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York. Minnesota and Virginia regulate assault weapons.

Healey said "assault weapons” — specifically the AR-15 — are the weapons of choice for mass shooters, citing recent shootings in Orlando, Baton Rouge, Dallas, Sandy Hook, and San Bernardino.

She failed to mention that Orlando and San Bernardino were attacks by jihadists, not ordinary Americans. Even in France, where almost all guns are illegal, the jihadists used "assault style" weapons in the November 2015 attack that killed 130 people and wounded more than 350.

Alan Gottlieb is founder of the Second Amendment Foundation.

The only thing France's draconian gun laws assured was that its law-abiding citizens were unable to fight back and defend themselves on that dark day, said Alan Gottlieb, executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation. And now certain states in America want to disarm their citizens in the same way.

"This is an abuse of power by the Massachusetts Attorney General," Gottlieb told WND in an email. "It is no different than President Obama’s illegal anti-gun executive orders. If these firearms were legal yesterday they are legal today.

"This ban on semi-auto firearms must be stopped before gun prohibitionists in other states try to enact similar bans by fiat."

Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America.

Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, said the good citizens of Massachusetts should ignore the ban if it gets extended to include those already owned and sitting in residents' homes. And no one should be surprised if Massachusetts and other liberal states head in that direction, he said, becaus gun confiscation usually occurs incrementally, first with a ban on sales and later with registrations. Confiscation is the final step.

"Maura Healey is likely to embarrass herself as much as the legislators who voted for the state's gun ban already have," Pratt said. "It seems not to have dawned on them that they have gone too far in their lust for unconstitutional gun laws. Even people in the very liberal state of Massachusetts have already declared with their actions, that the spirit of Gonzales, Texas, is still strong, even in Yankeedom: 'Come and take it.' Will Ms. Healey be among those actually grabbing people's guns?"

"Come and take it" is a historic American slogan, used in 1778 at Fort Morris in the Province of Georgia during the American Revolutionary War, and in 1835 at the Battle of Gonzales during the Texas Revolution.