Sportsman’s Corner: Gun law opinions

Published: 10-10-2024 12:38 PM

Modified: 10-15-2024 2:52 PM

By Mike Roche

There are many famous quotes about opinions. Everyone has them. The question is about value as compared to facts and it seems to me like too few people form opinions based on facts. But that is my opinion.

After returning from my odyssey to northern Vermont and Maine, it pains me that what dominated my time was the outpouring of feelings about the new Massachusetts gun law and not the hunting experiences. Gov. Maura Healey ignited a firestorm when she decided to exercise her power as the governor and signed an emergency preamble that put the new gun law into effect immediately and insured that it could not be suspended by a referendum petition.

Her response was obviously a reaction to an effort driven by hunters, target shooters, gun owners and concerned citizens who were undertaking a signature effort to place the controversial gun law on the ballot in two years. That strong drive, which engaged many people from a broad cross-section of Massachusetts voters, would have created a two-year period of examination of the law and the effects it would have on responsible, law-abiding Massachusetts citizens and non-residents who hunt, target shoot or just drive through Massachusetts with a firearm in possession.

These are my opinions and should be taken as such. As this is being written, opinions are all that are available as the Massachusetts police chiefs have just, within the past few days, been briefed on the law and provided with what was described to me by a police officer as “a very large document with hundreds of points to be addressed and understood by law enforcement” which would then somehow have to be communicated to the public.

We all need to understand one fact. This law was rushed through the legislature during the final hours of a two-year session and never had a hearing before the members of both houses or the public! To ask for two years of time to look at this law and then have the public, in a democratic society, vote on it as a referendum question was not only reasonable, but how democracy functions. Many of you reading this are not hunters, target shooters, or gun owners but it is my desire to ask you consider this matter as an abuse – some have called this tyrannical – of power by Gov. Maura Healy. This writer can think of no defensible reason for the emergency action months after the bill was passed.

In addition to raising questions about Gov. Healy, it is my desire to encourage people to ask their elected officials, your state representative and state senator to explain where they stand on the passage of this apparently flawed bill into law and then the emergency action. As always, yours truly will listen to any explanation which an elected official might offer but, again, in my opinion, this very lengthy bill does little to prevent gun violence.

Let one thing be crystal clear – no one abhors gun violence more than I do! My entire life has been spent learning and then passing along a healthy respect for guns. As a Massachusetts Hunter Safety Master Instructor, rifle and shotgun instructor at the Massachusetts Junior Conservation Camp, club advisor for the Mahar Fish’N Game Club and later as a deputy sheriff for the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department, safety and responsibility have always been the priority. No one should fear a shooting in a school, a theater, a concert, or your workplace! A unified effort by everyone to examine the root causes of gun violence should have been undertaken long ago by state and federal legislators in a bipartisan effort instead of the divisiveness that has prevented any meaningful progress. My Ruger Red Label 28 gauge over and under shotgun used for bird hunting and the Remington 1100 autoloading (semi-automatic) shotgun that is my gun for deer hunting are not and will never pose a threat to public safety.

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The parts of the new law that restrict young people from being able to possess a firearm so that they can learn and appreciate safe activities like target shooting and hunting are not well thought out and the training course outlined and required by the law did not exist when the bill was passed! Law-abiding and responsible hunters and gun owners, many of whom grew up in Massachusetts, face restrictions which many have determined will end them hunting or shooting in Massachusetts. That is incredibly unfair!

With that, my personal tirade will cease for this column. There is so much information which needs to be made available to the public and the police departments, already overburdened and under supported, are faced with this daunting task of informing the public about this travesty that is impacting so many honest men, women and young people who enjoy shooting sports responsibly.

My northern trip to Vermont and Maine was interesting and the dogs got a lot of work in a different type of upland cover. Paul Rullo and I enjoyed grouse wrapped in bacon and baked (yum!) and my trip to Lakewood Camps was worthy of a column by itself. Now it is time, maybe for the last time as the properties which I hunt have been sold, for my trip to northern New York for some woodcock and grouse hunting and then guiding for the Ruffed Grouse Society New York Grouse and Woodcock Hunt. Until then!

Mike Roche is a retired teacher who has been involved in conservation and wildlife issues his entire life. He has written the Sportsman’s Corner since 1984 and has served as advisor to the Mahar Fish’N Game Club, counselor and director of the Massachusetts Conservation Camp, former Connecticut Valley District representative on the Massachusetts Fisheries and Wildlife Board, a Massachusetts Hunter Education Instructor and is a licensed New York hunting guide. He can be reached at mikeroche3@msn.com.