Massachusetts voters will decide on November 3 whether to keep or repeal Chapter 135, the sweeping gun law the state passed in 2024. On Question 9, a yes vote keeps the law and a no vote repeals it.
The measure is a veto referendum, which makes it unusual on this year's ballot. Every other question asks voters to adopt a new law. This one asks whether an existing law should survive, GBH News explained on October 23. Early voting runs through October 30.
What Chapter 135 does
The law was the legislature's response to the Supreme Court's 2022 Bruen decision, which struck down New York's limits on carrying handguns in public. According to GBH and The Heights, Boston College's student newspaper, its main provisions:
It requires all guns to carry serial numbers, so that ghost guns, 3D printed or assembled from parts, must be registered.
It bans modifications that convert semi-automatic weapons, which fire once per trigger pull, into automatic weapons.
It expands the state's red flag law so that more people, including health care providers and school officials, can ask a judge to temporarily remove guns from someone who poses an extreme risk. GBH reported that at most a couple dozen such petitions are filed each year.
It tightens rules on assault-style weapons, adds training requirements, sets up a real-time electronic registration system and reclassifies some gun crimes, such as making some shootings into a home a felony instead of a misdemeanor.
Gov. Maura Healey signed the law with an emergency preamble, so it took effect immediately instead of being suspended until the vote. A repeal would not erase older Massachusetts gun laws or federal law.
How it got on the ballot
The Civil Rights Coalition, a gun rights group, gathered nearly 80,000 confirmed signatures to force the referendum, The Heights reported. The group argues that "Chapter 135 set a precedent that would allow Beacon Hill to erode protections."
Toby Leary of Cape Gun Works told GBH's Boston Public Radio that lawmakers did not have the right to "erode or change or hamstring our constitutionally enumerated rights." He said the law was "horribly done by kind of ramming it through." Brendan Salisbury of the Liberal Gun Club told The Heights the registry "doesn't actually provide any meaningful safety benefit."
Supporters say the law keeps guns away from people who will not use them responsibly. "We don't throw out regulations because some people don't follow them," said Ruth Zakarin, chair of the Yes on 9 campaign. Senate Majority Leader Cynthia Creem told The Heights, "We did not take away the rights of people to lawfully carry a gun."
The governor's race
The question has become a dividing line in the race for governor. Healey plans to vote yes. "I think that our gun laws should stay in place, that's a big difference in this race," she said, NBC Boston reported on October 26. Her Republican challenger, Mike Minogue, signaled he would vote no. "The way it's set up now is people are assumed guilty until proven innocent, and that doesn't work," he said.
Analysis: the numbers behind the vote
A September poll by the MassINC Polling Group for CommonWealth Beacon found 70% of voters would keep the law, 18% would repeal it and 11% were undecided, according to The Heights and GBH. By the newsroom's math, that is a 52-point gap. Even if every undecided voter chose repeal, the no side would reach only 29%.
The money has been closer than the polling.
Yes side (keep the law): spending of $366,000 (GBH), about $460,000 (The Heights). Notable donor: $500,000 from the Massachusetts Teachers Association.
No side (repeal): spending of $436,000 since 2024 (GBH). Notable donors: Smith & Wesson, $50,000, Gun Owners Action League, nearly $23,000.
The two outlets reported different totals for the yes campaign a week apart, The Heights on October 16 and GBH on October 23.
Both sides also cite safety data. Massachusetts had the second lowest firearm death rate in the country in 2024, 3.8 deaths per 100,000 residents, behind only Hawaii's 3.7, according to CDC figures cited by GBH. Creem has said violent crime fell 7% and homicides fell 27% since the law took effect, but The Heights noted she gave no source or time period for those figures.
Why it matters beyond Massachusetts
A vote to keep Chapter 135 would not end the legal fight. Gun rights groups can still challenge parts of it in court, and the Supreme Court's coming ruling on AR-15 bans, which we covered in Cook County and Connecticut Defend AR-15 Bans, could affect the law's assault weapon provisions. For gun owners who travel, state laws like this one are why a permit at home does not guarantee the right to carry elsewhere, as we explained in Carrying a Gun Across State Lines. The vote also comes as federal monitors prepare for the midterms, which we covered in Justice Department Plans Record 1,000 Election Monitors.
Two Taps News stories summarize reporting and the analysis discussed on Two Taps and Friends. They are not legal advice. Read our standards.
