A panel of gun legislation experts released a report Monday calling for Massachusetts to toughen its gun laws at the behest of Massachusetts Speaker of the House Bob DeLeo. The committee’s intention is to bolster the strict laws currently in place in the commonwealth to help reduce gun violence while possibly generating revenue for the state.
According to the report, Massachusetts is a national leader when it comes to firearm measures. In 2013 the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence ranked the Bay State sixth overall in terms of gun law strength, while gun ownership and gun-related deaths are similarly ranked amongst the lowest in the country.
Heading the committee is Northeastern University Associate Dean of Research and criminal justice professor Jack McDevitt. The committee met more than 15 times over the nine month period between March 28, 2013 and the end of December 2013, per the report.
McDevitt and his constituents made some 40-plus recommendations over the 23-page report, which lawmakers will surely utilize to draft bills aimed at making the obtaining of firearms a more exclusive affair. The committee suggests, among plenty others, that “school resource officers be approved jointly by police and school officials, increased social workers in schools, and higher penalties for unauthorized possession of a gun on school grounds” and that there be no “changes to the restriction limiting large-capacity magazines to 10 rounds.”
“I extend my thanks to Dean McDevitt and the entire gun task force for their work. I am now in receipt of their report, ‘Strategies for Reducing Gun Violence in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,’” said Speaker DeLeo in a statement. “The report is an important step in helping us find ways to make Massachusetts a safer place for our children and families. I look forward to reviewing their recommendations as we craft gun violence legislation along with the Committee on Public Safety
The Boston Globe notes that the findings are expected to form the basis for gun-control legislation that will come before the House by July 2014.
In December, Boston held several vigils in remembrance of the one-year anniversary of the tragic Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn., where 20 young children and six adults were brutally and unsuspectingly shot to death in one of the most notorious mass shootings in our nation’s history.
BostInno reached out directly to Speaker DeLeo’s office which provided a full copy of the report available below.
Strategies for Reducing Gun Violence in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
