Massachusetts governor signs bill cracking down on hard-to-trace ‘ghost guns’

BOSTON (AP) — Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey signed a sweeping gun bill Thursday that supporters say builds on the state’s existing gun laws, including a crackdown on hard to trace “ghost guns,” while safeguarding the rights of gun owners.

The law is part of an effort by the state to respond to a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that citizens have a right to carry firearms in public for self-defense.

On ghost guns, the law toughens oversight for those who own privately made, unserialized firearms that are largely untraceable. In 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice reported recovering 25,785 ghost guns in domestic seizures.

The law expands the state’s extreme risk protective order law — also known as the red flag law — by authorizing health care professionals and others who interact regularly with people in crisis to petition a court to suspend a person’s right to possess or carry a gun to protect themselves and others.

The law also prohibits the possession of firearms by non-law-enforcement people at schools, polling locations and government buildings and imposes strict penalties for the possession of modification devices, such as Glock switches, which supporters of the law say convert an otherwise legal firearm into a fully automatic firearm.

<bsp-list-loadmore data-module="" class=«PageListStandardB» data-gtm-region=«RELATED COVERAGE» data-gtm-topic=«No Value» data-show-loadmore=«true»