The lights were dim in the concrete gun range of Cape Gun Works as owner Toby Leary loaded the magazine of a Ruger PC Carbine.
Leary lifted the semiautomatic rifle to his shoulder and shot 10 rounds into a floating paper target, filling the room with sound and the smell of lead.
When the smoke cleared, Leary was not happy with his aim: he had just missed the bull’s-eye.
“I used to shoot recreationally, it’s very cathartic,” he said. “But now it means work.”
On this recent morning, Leary said he has been overloaded with work these days. He’s leading the campaign to repeal the state’s wide-ranging new gun control law. That law bans the sale of the very rifle he’s shooting.
“Because it has a pistol grip, and a shroud on the front of the barrel, this is now considered an assault-style weapon,” Leary said.
The MAssachusetts Legislature this summer passed the biggest update to the state’s gun laws in a decade, and it was quickly signed by Gov. Maura Healey.
The measure broadens the state’s assault weapons ban, prohibits guns from being carried in polling places and government buildings and outlaws devices like Glock switches that make semi-automatic weapons fire more quickly.
It also cracks down on unregistered ghost guns, and it allows people like health care providers and school officials to petition a court to remove someone’s gun license under the state’s “red flag” law.
Leary said the new measure means he can no longer sell about a third of his inventory.
“It’s kind of like telling Ford Motor Company they can no longer sell the Ford F-150,” he said. “And then them telling the manufacturer, well, you can still sell the Ford Focus! Like, you should be happy, you still have other cars to sell.”
Leary said he believes the gun control law is a violation of the Second Amendment. He and a group of volunteer organizers across the state have gathered about 90,000 signatures to force a ballot question that would repeal the law in its entirety. The deadline to turn those signatures in to local elections officials is Wednesday.
Normally, gathering nearly 50,000 certified signatures would suspend the law until voters could decide its fate. But Healey signed an emergency preamble last week, immediately implementing the law and its new restrictions.
“It is important that these measures go into effect without delay,” Healey said in a statement.
It was a move that further infuriated Second Amendment advocates. “In 2024 here we are, fighting for our right to keep and bear arms,” Leary said. “And if they can do it to this — they can do it to any other right.”
Pro-gun groups are also attacking the law in court. The very day Healey signed the bill, the National Rifle Association announced its intent to file a series of lawsuits. Mass Armament, a Bellingham gun shop, filed suit in federal court last week.
Supporters of the law aren’t backing down. As Healey signed the bill into law, the legislation’s chief author, state Rep. Michael Day of Stoneham, even appeared to welcome the fight.
“To those who have already rushed forward to say they will challenge this law in the courts, I say, ‘Bring it on,’” he said.
Legal experts agree Massachusetts’ new gun control law will likely hold up — at least in state court.
“What this law has done is a little bit more modest than the way it’s been framed by opponents,” said Cody Jacobs, a lecturer at the Boston University School of Law who studies the constitutional law and state gun policy. “I don’t think that the changes that this law made are likely to be struck down by a court under the Second Amendment.”
But there could be an entirely different outcome, Jacobs said, if any of the lawsuits end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.
That’s because the law expands upon the state’s existing assault weapons ban, and Jacobs argues these types of bans are at risk of being overturned by the high court.
“With assault weapons bans, I think that’s the thing that’s next on the chopping block,” he said. “The gun lobby is trying to get to this Supreme Court so that their six-justice majority can strike them down.”
The Supreme Court’s conservative justices appear ready to further roll back gun control laws in the U.S. For instance, in their landmark 2022 Bruen decision, the court found a constitutional right to carry a handgun in public, upending many states’ licensing laws.
Massachusetts is one of 10 states that ban military-style assault weapons. Jacobs said if an NRA lawsuit challenging the Massachusetts law makes it to the high court, the justices potentially could eliminate assault weapons bans across the country.
Leary said he is confident the law will eventually be struck down or repealed.
“Right now we have the Constitution on our side,” he said. “We have many Supreme Court decisions on our side.":
In the meantime, Leary suggested he and other gun store owners may choose to break the law and continue selling weapons that are now banned.
“We may choose an act of civil disobedience,” he said. “At this point we’ve tried very hard to comply with the unconstitutional laws to date. But they are painting us into a corner where we can no longer be a viable business and continue to obey the laws.”
This story was originally published by WBUR. It was shared as part of the New England News Collaborative.
