October 2, 2024 – Gun Owners’ Action League

Healey Signs Emergency Order to Bypass the People’s Voice
GOAL Prepared to Take Immediate Legal Action

For at least the second time in her career, Governor Maura Healey is about to make hundreds of thousands of citizens into “felons in waiting”.

On July 20, 2016, Maura Healey woke up and held a press conference that changed 18 years of settled law by reinterpreting a single word. That word was “copy”. In an instant, and with no warning, she turned endless thousands of the 2A community into felons in waiting. While she never prosecuted any License to Carry holders, much to the chagrin of the Boston Globe, the weight of a ten-year felony hung over innocent citizens.

Eight years later, almost to the day, Healey signed H.4885 into law (Chapter 135 of the Acts of 2024). The final language of the bill was kept secret until the night before the legislature voted on it. Within a few days, Healey signed into law what would become the worst attack on civil rights in modern U.S. history.

As a result of this historic assault on civil rights, an effort was undertaken to bring a repeal of the law before the citizens of the Commonwealth. If enough signatures were gathered, the entire law would have been suspended until a referendum was placed before the voters in November of 2026. Because it was clear that volunteers were well on their way to collect the tens of thousands of signatures necessary, the Governor pulled a very rare maneuver. The radical move was to attach an emergency order to the new law and thus circumventing its suspension, regardless of the will of the people.

“Ever since this tantrum against the Supreme Court decision Bruen started last year, the so-called ‘process’ has become even more putrid,” said Jim Wallace, Executive Director of GOAL. “At every turn, the legislature and now the Governor, have avoided honest public input, especially from the 2A community. We are the only stakeholders involved and there is a consistent effort to silence our voices and mislead the general public.”

Knowing the history of Governor Healey, GOAL had already begun to draft a complaint to go before a Federal Court. We hope the court will take this up immediately, and place an injunction on any enforcement.

Updates will be posted on our website at www.goal.org/legal

I've read this post twice and still don't know what she did with the word "copy".
How about some explanation, OP?

Sorry! I just directly copied a post I got from the Gun Owners Action League.  Essentially during her original assault weapons ban in 2016 she changed some language instantly turning thousands of legal gun owners into felons, and that word was "copy".  I don't know much more about that.

My intent was to showcase that today despite several month-long efforts of 2A activists in the state to get her new bill "stayed" and put onto the ballot for a statewide vote, she simply signed an emergency pre-amble 2 months later in order to put the garbage bill directly into law.

But this IS Massachusetts, so I expect no pity.  Just wanted to make it known that this happened today.

Mark Smith (4 boxes diner) on youtube breaks it down well.  Basically MA law allows people, with enough signatures, to prevent a new law from.going into effect until the next election cycle.  The Governor used an obscure "exception" to prevent the signature process thereby making her law effective immediately

Thanks for the info, guys.
It is Mass, with a commie governor, so it's not unexpected that they would end run around laws.

They have a statewide Assault Weapon ban that outlawed guns by features or model name and also covered "copies" of those guns.

Copies was interpreted as guns identical to those on the list. 18 years after the law went into effect, she issued a declaration that vastly expanded the definition of "copy" to cover firearms that were previously legal with no grandfathering.