by Anthony Morelli
This new law could be a devastating blow for hunters.
The bill quietly passed with little fanfare.
But now thousands of hunters could be in big trouble.
When Massachusetts passed their new bill to tighten the screws on gun owners in their state, it didn’t receive a lot of national attention despite how egregious it was.
However, now that more information is coming out about this bill and the effects that it will have, it is becoming clear that it is one of the worst gun controls bills that has passed in recent memory.
It may even have a significant impact on hunting, which is the one gun activity that Democrats claim they don’t want to interfere with.
It is a common refrain, when Democrats are accused of wanting to take guns away, for them to say “we’re okay with hunting!”
Of course, hunting is not the purpose of the Second Amendment, but Democrats don’t seem to know or care about that.
However, now even hunting could be on the chopping block in Massachusetts after this new bill passed which could impose onerous new restrictions on the activity.
According to The Truth About Guns, “A sweeping gun-control law passed earlier this year in Massachusetts could negatively impact hunters—especially nonresidents—who don’t understand the restrictive regulations.”
The article reports that the bill “includes many new restrictions that could turn hunters into accidental criminals. Anti-gun lawmakers pushed the measure through both chambers of government very quickly and on the same day—intentionally making it difficult for interested parties to study the language or lobby against the measure.”
In other words, hunting is technically still legal, but in practice many hunters could end up finding out that they are criminals because they accidentally failed to follow part of the regulations.
This uncertainty will disincentivize people from going hunting at all, since nobody wants to accidentally break the law and end up charged with a crime.
The article continues, “For starters, before a resident can hunt, he or she is now required to obtain a Firearm Identification Card (FID). This entails obtaining an instructor who is approved by the Colonel of State Police, completing a live-fire exercise in an environment where shooting ranges are increasingly more difficult to access and purchasing and registering a firearm that is not listed as prohibited.
“Additionally, under the new law, nonresident hunters cannot possess a firearm within Massachusetts unless their state has similar laws—and, of course, most do not, which will shut down nonresident hunting.”
This is going to basically kill off hunting in Massachusetts. Nobody is going to want to jump through all of these crazy hoops when they can just go to another state that isn’t trying to attack them.
New Hampshire is right across the border, and one can assume that hunting in New Hampshire is about to take off as Massachusetts residents flee there.
This is a disaster for the thousands of Bay Staters who own guns and want to hunt, as the state government is trying to make them criminals.