Stats don't support Massachusetts AG's expanded ban on 'assault weapons'

**NRA Member** · July 21st, 2016, 08:09 PM

Why in the *uck are they expanding the ban on "assault weapons" Not one murder in 2014 with a rifle.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016...t-weapons.html

Stats don't support Massachusetts AG's expanded ban on 'assault weapons'

FBI Uniform Crime Statistics show zero murders were committed in Massachusetts in 2014 using rifles of any sort.

Massachusetts’ latest move to expand its assault weapons ban to a new class of rifles is a solution in search of a problem, according to gun rights groups who note the latest annual FBI statistics show not one murder was committed in the Bay State using a rifle of any kind.

State Attorney General Maura Healey announced this week the state’s more than 30-year-old ban on assault weapons would now be expanded to include rifles that look like, or can be modified to perform like, assault rifles. Healey cited recent mass shootings around the nation in recent years, and said expanding the definition of assault rifles would make citizens safer.

“The gun industry has openly defied our laws here in Massachusetts for nearly two decades,” Healey said Wednesday. “That ends today."

"We have a moral and legal responsibility to ensure that combat-style weapons are off our streets and out of the hands of those who would use them to kill innocent people," she said. "Increasingly, these guns are the weapon of choice for mass shooters, and we will do everything we can to prevent the kinds of tragedies here that have occurred in places like Orlando, San Bernardino, Newtown and Aurora.”

But critics reacted quickly, noting that FBI Uniform Crime Statistics show zero murders were committed in Massachusetts in 2014 using rifles of any sort. While most mass shootings in the U.S. involved a rifle, the vast majority of gun deaths nationwide did not.

“This is an abuse of power by the Massachusetts attorney general,” said Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and founder of the Second Amendment Foundation.

“It is no different than President Obama’s illegal anti-gun executive orders. If these firearms were legal yesterday, they are legal today," Gottlieb said in an email to FoxNews.com.

"This ban on semi-auto firearms must be stopped before gun prohibitionists in other states try to enact similar bans by fiat," he said.

**john9001** · July 21st, 2016, 08:12 PM

They don't need stats, they use emotions.

**middlefinger** · July 24th, 2016, 11:44 AM

.

Gun owners, outraged by Attorney General Maura Healey, rally at State House: 'This has gone national'

http://www.masslive.com/politics/ind...y_attorne.html

**Krichardson** · July 24th, 2016, 11:58 AM

I don't see how the AG can do this without the governor's approval.

**kimtyson** · July 24th, 2016, 02:22 PM

I'm not the only one that thinks "these combat weapons" NEED to be in the hands of our citizenry, am I?

**IIIIIREPOIIIII** · July 24th, 2016, 03:12 PM

Hundreds of gun owners and activists rallied outside the Massachusetts State House on Saturday

YUP......We are our own worst enemy!

**Defender** · July 25th, 2016, 08:24 AM

Hey, you are talking about Massachusetts here. This is the same state the requires a trigger lock be placed on the flintlock musket that hangs in the statehouse.