Massachusetts voters decide whether to keep 2024 gun law as Idaho picks a state gun

By Kenji Harrow

WASHINGTON — Voters in two states will weigh in on guns on Nov. 3 from opposite directions: Massachusetts residents will decide whether to keep a sweeping 2024 gun-control law, while Idahoans will advise their Legislature on which historic firearm should become the official state gun.

The contrast, reported by The Associated Press, comes as Massachusetts gun owners face a Wednesday, Oct. 28, deadline to register their firearms with the state under the very law on the ballot — six days before voters decide whether to repeal it.

Massachusetts Question 9

Question 9 asks voters whether to keep “An Act Modernizing Firearm Laws,” which the Legislature approved on July 18, 2024, by votes of 124 to 33 in the House and 35 to 5 in the Senate, according to the secretary of the commonwealth’s voter guide. A yes vote keeps the law in place; a no vote repeals it.

According to the attorney general’s summary in the guide, the law requires serial numbers on all firearms except antiques and relics, including unfinished frames and receivers; penalizes untraceable “ghost guns,” including 3D-printed guns; requires people to be 21 to own semiautomatic rifles or shotguns; adds bump stocks, trigger cranks, Glock switches and auto sears to the definition of machine guns; and lets school administrators and licensed health care providers petition courts for extreme risk protection orders. It also bars carrying firearms in government buildings, polling places and schools, with exceptions, and creates a public dashboard of anonymized firearm data.

The law also directs the state to build a real-time electronic firearms registration system, with all firearms possessed in the commonwealth to be registered through it, according to the full text published with the guide.

The measure is on the ballot because opponents gathered petition signatures to force a referendum, the AP reported. Ordinarily that would have suspended the law until the election, but Gov. Maura Healey, a Democrat, signed an emergency provision in 2024 that put it into effect immediately.

“It’s a total violation of people’s rights to require this before they have their chance to vote on it,” Toby Leary, chair of The Civil Rights Coalition, which leads the repeal effort, told the AP. Leary also argued that a state database of gun owners could be hacked: “It’s a wish list for nefarious actors for where they can go get guns.”

In the official argument against the law printed in the voter guide, the coalition calls it “a deeply flawed, 116-page piece of bureaucratic overreach” that mandates “an expensive, real-time electronic tracking system that the state hasn’t funded.”

Supporters counter that the law is working. “This legislation both preserves a legal pathway to gun ownership while also putting guardrails in place that keep people safe,” Ruth Zakarin, who chairs the campaign committee backing the law and leads the Massachusetts Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence, told the AP. The official argument in favor, filed by Vote Yes for a Safe Massachusetts, says the state has “a gun death rate 70% lower than the national average” and that repeal “would make everyone in Massachusetts less safe.”

The state’s Executive Office of Administration and Finance, in its fiscal statement in the guide, says the commonwealth has already invested in training, new licensing processes and IT systems to carry out the law, and that repeal would require it to spend resources suspending or redirecting that work.

Massachusetts would be the third jurisdiction, after Hawaii and the District of Columbia, with a comprehensive gun registry, and six other states require registration of some firearms, according to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, as cited by the AP. “These laws help law enforcement solve crimes, track down stolen and trafficked guns,” said Lindsay Nichols, the center’s policy director. Federal law has barred a national firearms registry for four decades.

A WBUR poll conducted with the University of Massachusetts found 70% of likely voters supporting the law and 21% opposed, WBUR reported Oct. 19.

Idaho’s state gun

In Idaho, the Republican-led Legislature placed a nonbinding advisory question on the ballot asking voters to choose “the state gun of Idaho” from six historic firearms, according to the AP. House Majority Leader Jason Monks, the Republican who sponsored the measure, said he hopes it will drive turnout and noted that it coincides with the nation’s 250th anniversary.

“There’s not much more patriotic in Idaho than guns — and the importance of guns in helping to found our country and settle the West,” Monks said. If a clear winner emerges, lawmakers will likely take up a bill in 2027 to make it official, he told the AP.

Neill Goodfellow, a board member of the Idaho State Rifle & Pistol Association, told the AP he plans to vote for the M1 Garand, the semiautomatic rifle carried by U.S. troops in World War II, but said none of the six options “really have a significant place in the history of Idaho.”

About 3 in 5 Idaho adults live in households with guns, among the highest rates in the country, according to a RAND estimate cited by the AP. Utah and Arizona became the first states to adopt official firearms in 2011.

The Civil Rights Coalition, Vote Yes for a Safe Massachusetts, Healey’s office and Monks’ office did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday.