For the purposes of this thread, I’m going to steer completely clear of the debate that’s raging in these pages about the NRA. I’ve made that decision because I realized that it’s a separate matter not very deeply connected to the subject I want to discuss here. In some ways, this is more important than that debate.

[I could have titled it: "Meanwhile, on the other side of the country..." Heh.]

Redstate has historically been a forum where people from all across the country could and would talk about important legislative matters that were either incipient law or just over the horizon. Well, there’s a very important piece of legislation that is in the “post-incipient” phase here in Massachusetts that I think is vitally important to anyone in this country who cares about 2nd Amendment rights, even though it will affect Massachusetts residents first. You might not care about that, but you should.

To begin with, my bonafides on this subject: I’m a Massachusetts Class A LTC holder and a member of GOAL (Gun Owner’s Action League) here in MA. The process I undertook to receive that license was among the strictest in the United States and required more than three months to complete. I’ve been fingerprinted 4 times, taken the NRA Basic Pistol (including live fire) course, and had my background checked at both the federal and state levels, in addition to paying all the requisite course and licensing fees. GOAL is the premier organization in this state that keeps us informed and active on legislative matters — in addition to being a great organization for its members — and I want to do everything I can in these pages to support their efforts.

See? I don’t need to mention the NRA. On to the matter at hand:

At this very moment, the Massachusetts House Ways and Means Committee is polling its members on Deval Patrick’s H.4102, a.k.a. “An Act To Reduce Firearm Violence.” Instead of recapitulating everything about this bill, and why it is all such a disastrous tangle of legislation, I’d rather direct people to GOAL’s page on the subject. Briefly, however — this is a one-gun-a-month restriction with enough emanating penumbras to give even William O. Douglas a case of the hives. In practice its effect will be to eliminate private sales of firearms while at the same time putting even more pressure on lawful gun dealers and license holders in this state, while creating a dangerous, new and ambiguously defined crime with a 10-year prison sentence based on a misdemeanor.

If you visit that page and click the links and do a little reading, you’ll quickly find yourself up to speed on the post-Heller and post-McDonald state of play regarding anti-gun legislation here in the Bluest of the Blue states. The reason you should visit that page and read about it is that everyone knows that recent Massachusetts history has become National history on a number of very important matters. I really shouldn’t have to go down the list. You know it is long.

We’re working hard to prevent you having to fight these types of laws in your home state. If it happens here in Massachusetts, it’s a favorable bet that some version of it will be coming to a state near you. I’d appreciate it if people here at Redstate took a good long look at what is happening here in the Commonwealth and do whatever they prudently can to help stop this proposed legislation from becoming law. The most important thing they could do is to have friends or relatives who live in the Commonwealth contact their State representatives, particularly the members of the House Ways and Means Committee who represent their districts. The history of gun control legislation in this state since 1998 has been utterly disastrous and counterproductive on every level. Read about it at the last link.

The disastrous record and the toll it has taken on lawful, licensed gun owners have not stopped the gun grabbers, and, particularly this year, in the wake of the two most historic 2nd Amendment Supreme Court decisions in our nation’s history, all indications are that the fight for 2nd Amendment rights has by no means been settled: it has entered a completely new domain.

HEADS UP.

Please help if you can, and don’t let it happen where you live, regardless of whether you support the NRA, GOA, or anyone else. It’s a bad law and it needs to be stopped here.