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Panel OKs bill nixing lifetime gun ban
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Panel OKs bill nixing lifetime gun ban
Friday, May 3, 2002
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BOSTON-- A legislative committee approved a bill that eliminates the state's lifetime ban on gun possession for people convicted of some crimes.
The Public Safety Committee yesterday gave initial approval to a bill that allows people who have committed nonviolent felonies and violent misdemeanors, other than domestic assault, to own a gun seven years after they've completed their punishment.
Sen. Cheryl A. Jacques, D-Needham, said the bill significantly weakens the state's tough gun control law, which imposes a lifetime ban on gun ownership for anyone convicted of a violent crime punishable by imprisonment for more than two years, a felony, any drug crime, or any firearms offense.
"This is still Massachusetts, we still have the toughest and fairest gun control laws in the nation," said Rep. Timothy J. Toomey Jr., the Cambridge Democrat who is co-chairman of the committee and sponsored the bill.
"It's for law-abiding and responsible gun owners who were affected by the 1998 law so they can hunt and target shoot," he said.
"What we have found since 1998 is that there are a lot of individuals who 30 or 40 years ago had a simple fight on a playground, had been outstanding citizens since, World War II veterans, heroes in defending their country, people in law enforcement, who have been ruled ineligible because of that," he said.
Jacques said the 1998 law, which she sponsored, shouldn't be changed.
"We have the lowest gun crime rate of any industrialized state," she said. In the first full year after the gun control law passed, the number of accidental shootings among children declined 80 percent and the suicide rate dropped 20 percent, she said.
She said governors can pardon individuals who need a gun. Seven people were pardoned last year for that reason, she said.
The bill now goes to the House. http://www.telegram.com/news/inside/guncon.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Friday, May 3, 2002
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BOSTON-- A legislative committee approved a bill that eliminates the state's lifetime ban on gun possession for people convicted of some crimes.
The Public Safety Committee yesterday gave initial approval to a bill that allows people who have committed nonviolent felonies and violent misdemeanors, other than domestic assault, to own a gun seven years after they've completed their punishment.
Sen. Cheryl A. Jacques, D-Needham, said the bill significantly weakens the state's tough gun control law, which imposes a lifetime ban on gun ownership for anyone convicted of a violent crime punishable by imprisonment for more than two years, a felony, any drug crime, or any firearms offense.
"This is still Massachusetts, we still have the toughest and fairest gun control laws in the nation," said Rep. Timothy J. Toomey Jr., the Cambridge Democrat who is co-chairman of the committee and sponsored the bill.
"It's for law-abiding and responsible gun owners who were affected by the 1998 law so they can hunt and target shoot," he said.
"What we have found since 1998 is that there are a lot of individuals who 30 or 40 years ago had a simple fight on a playground, had been outstanding citizens since, World War II veterans, heroes in defending their country, people in law enforcement, who have been ruled ineligible because of that," he said.
Jacques said the 1998 law, which she sponsored, shouldn't be changed.
"We have the lowest gun crime rate of any industrialized state," she said. In the first full year after the gun control law passed, the number of accidental shootings among children declined 80 percent and the suicide rate dropped 20 percent, she said.
She said governors can pardon individuals who need a gun. Seven people were pardoned last year for that reason, she said.
The bill now goes to the House. http://www.telegram.com/news/inside/guncon.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878