Uvalde shooting triggers closer look at gun laws; Massachusetts lawmakers ‘extremely proud’ but say they will review additional reforms

House Speaker Ronald Mariano said he is “extremely proud” of Massachusetts’ gun laws Wednesday — considered some of the tightest in the nation — while Senate President Karen Spilka said her branch would take a look at potential reforms in the wake of a Texas school shooting that left 19 children and two teachers dead.

An 18-year-old gunman walked into a classroom at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas and opened fire at “anyone that was in his way,” authorities there said. The school shooting was the deadliest in the United States since 20 children and six adults were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut in 2012 and comes two weeks after 10 Black people were killed at a Buffalo, New York supermarket.

Mariano said Massachusetts has some of the strongest gun laws in the country, adding he has asked Judiciary Committee Chairman Michael Day to monitor the situation “over the last couple of mass shootings” to see if there are additional reforms the House can take up.

“I don’t know what triggers these events and how much even gun control is going to stop these people who are on a mission to just annihilate races and ethnic groups of people,” he said. “It’s an underlying sickness in individuals that we have to identify and get at to see if we can treat these people. It’s more than just gun laws.”

Spilka said mass shootings are happening “all too often” in the United States, adding “it’s hard to believe that this is America.” She said prayers and thoughts are not enough — states and the federal government need to take action.

“I hear some of those in Texas that say it’s not the answer to have tighter gun control. That is absolutely the wrong thought, look at the states that do have tighter gun control,” Spilka told reporters Wednesday morning. “These instances are not happening like they’re happening in Texas and some other states.”

Massachusetts, Spilka said, already has strong gun control laws, but the Senate “will certainly take a look” at more reforms. Massachusetts bans the possession of semiautomatic rifles like Colt AR-15s, Kalashnikov AK-47s, and copies or duplicates of the weapons.

Following the 2018 Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, lawmakers here passed legislation that allows law enforcement to temporarily remove firearms from people who are considered dangerous to others or themselves.

But some advocates and public officials are asking Massachusetts to go further. At least one bill under consideration at the State House would ban the production of assault weapons in the state, which Spilka said she would “look into the language of the bill.”

The bill relies upon a definition in state law that says an assault weapon is a semiautomatic firearm like Colt AR-15s or Kalashnikov AK-47s or “copies or duplicates of the weapons.”

The Legislature gave the Judiciary Committee until June 30 to make a final decision on the bill sponsored by Reps. Marjorie Decker, Frank Moran and Sen. Cynthia Creem. Some lawmakers have also signaled an interest in addressing the production of ghost guns — firearms that are 3D-printed and untraceable.

Springfield-based Smith & Wesson operates a manufacturing plant in the city and previously announced that it would move its headquarters and much of its operations to Tennessee in 2023 partly in response to the proposed ban on assault weapon manufacturing in Massachusetts.

Decker, who also filed legislation targeting ghost guns, said a regular citizen in Massachusetts cannot purchase an assault weapon.

“So why would we allow those guns to be manufactured for the purpose of sale to private citizens in other states?” she told MassLive, adding that she was “horrified” after learning of the Texas shooting in the wake of the Buffalo shooting two weeks ago.

“Nobody needs an assault weapon, nobody, barring the military,” the Cambridge Democrat said. “What are we so afraid of? Why aren’t we afraid of losing the people we love? Like when does that actually start to translate into this is not inevitable?”

Smith & Wesson has previously said the legislation would prevent the company from “manufacturing firearms that are legal in almost every state in America and that are safely used by tens of millions of law-abiding citizens every day exercising their Constitutional 2nd Amendment rights.”

“While we are hopeful that this arbitrary and damaging legislation will be defeated in this session, these products made up over 60% of our revenue last year,” President and CEO Mark Smith previously said in a statement.

Sen. Sonia Chang-Díaz said she has been pushing for a ban on the bulk purchasing of guns in Massachusetts since she first assumed political office. The Democratic gubernatorial candidate said “it blows my mind” that mass shootings keep occurring in the United States and a lack of inaction at the federal level.

“It is a symptom of something that is so deeply broken about our politics,” she told MassLive. “Here at the state level, we have to also have that moral clarity, that as horrific as mass shootings are, that we cannot turn a blind eye to the tragedy and the loss of gun violence in our state, even though they have not been in the form of mass shootings.”

Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.

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