Gov. Maura Healey plans to use her executive authority Wednesday to deem a gun bill she signed in July an emergency law, a move that effectively nullifies an attempt by Second Amendment rights groups to suspend the measure before it takes hold later in October.
Healey’s anticipated action, which her office confirmed Tuesday, throws into limbo a campaign led by a Cape Cod gun store owner to collect nearly 50,000 signatures from registered voters in Massachusetts by Oct. 9 to shelve the gun reforms until the 2026 elections.
Toby Leary, owner of Cape Cod Gun Works and chairman of the Civil Rights Coalition, said Healey was set to demonstrate “pure tyranny at its finest” and threatened to put 400 gun stores out of business with her signature.
“She … is literally interfering with the democratic process that is unfolding, a constitutional process that is unfolding. She had two months to do this before,” Leary told the Herald Tuesday morning. “If it was such an immediate need and a dire threat to this state, why did they wait until they knew that we were going to be successful in our campaign? This is only an effort to silence the voices of the 85,000 people that will be involved in this campaign.”
In a statement to the Herald, a spokesperson for Healey said the governor plans to sign the emergency language on Wednesday, which will put the law into effect immediately rather than on Oct. 23 and “ensure that law’s operation cannot be suspended by the referendum petition.”
“This gun safety law bans ghost guns, strengthens the Extreme Risk Protection Order statute to keep guns out of the hands of people who are a danger to themselves or others, and invests in violence prevention programs. It is important that these measures go into effect without delay,” Healey said.
Gun rights groups can still collect just over 37,000 signatures to place a question before voters in 2026 asking them to repeal the gun law.
Leary said his coalition — which also includes the local affiliate of the National Rifle Association, other gun stores, and sportsmen clubs — already cleared that threshold. But he said organizers were still weighing whether to challenge Healey’s emergency declaration in court.
“We might just seek a preliminary injunction because this law is so unconstitutional,” he said. “It’s not going to be hard to show how people will be irreparably harmed, and we might seek a preliminary injunction for those reasons.”
The law bans people under 21 from owning semiautomatic rifles or shotguns, takes aim at so-called “ghost guns” by requiring the serialization of all firearms, and bars technology that turns semiautomatic weapons into fully automatic ones.
The bill also implements a host of new training and licensing requirements, though the Legislature took steps last month to delay their implementation date. Lawmakers said the language in the bill Healey signed over the summer was incorrect and needed to be corrected.
Democrats on Beacon Hill who authored and shepherded the proposal to passage have argued it is intended to keep everyone in the state safe, including gun owners, law enforcement, schoolchildren, and everyday adults.
But those in the gun community have said it stretches too far and state agencies will not be ready to deal with its immediate implementation.
“The systems aren’t in place, and nobody understands what the hell they’re supposed to be
doing,” said Jim Wallace, executive director of the local NRA affiliate, Gun Owners Action League. “It’s a mess, and it’s going to be a mess, and even the police officers have no clue what they’re supposed to do or what they’re supposed to enforce.”
Republicans are also hitting back at Healey.
“By invoking an emergency preamble to this flawed law targeting firearm ownership, Gov. Healey is deliberately subverting the democratic process and trampling on the people’s right to petition,” MassGOP Chair Amy Carnevale said in a statement to the Herald.
Critics of the law have also filed at least one federal lawsuit challenging the statute’s provisions covering firearms licensing, including requirements for a license to carry a firearm and a firearms identification card.
The National Rifle Association has also said it plans to file a separate lawsuit challenging one “of the most egregious and freedom-restricting laws in the history of the commonwealth.”
“We are thankful for the bipartisan group of legislators who stood against gun registries and the banning of commonly owned firearms and standard magazines. NRA will be challenging this law to restore the rights guaranteed to Bay Staters by the U.S. Constitution,” the organization said in a statement over the summer.
