Senator Jamie Eldridge Speech on SAFER Act
Thu Feb 1- State Senator Eldridge gave a speech on the the Senate Floor, as they voted on a piece of legislation that will overhaul the state's guns laws.
Full Speech Below:
I rise in support of An Act to Sensibly Address Firearm Violence through Effective Reform, the SAFER Act, to build upon the strong foundation that marks Massachusetts as having the strongest gun control laws, and one of the lowest gun violence rates, in the nation.
Iwant to thank the Senate President for her steadfast support for the Senate not only taking up a strong Senate gun safety bill, but ensuring that before S2572 was brought to the floor, that all gun safety bills filed by Senators had a public hearing. As the Senate chair of the Joint Committee on Judiciary, several bills concerning guns were heard last year, and I want to thank the Gentleman from Milton, as the Senate chair of the Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security, for his role in ensuring that the over 50 bills around reducing gun violence in Massachusetts were heard by his committee, before which I was proud to testify on the gun safety legislation that I filed this session.
My biggest thanks goes out to our Majority Leader. I am so thankful to the Lady from Newton, for her taking on the important assignment by the Senate President, to convene with all Senators, and craft the well-balanced, common sense gun safety legislation known as the SAFER Act. It has been a deliberative, thoughtful process that has involved not only two public hearings on pending gun safety legislation, and individual meetings with all Senators, but to the Majority Leader and her staff’s credit, meetings with all major stakeholders concerning guns and gun safety.
As elected officials, when you really think about it, our most important responsibility is to keep our constituents safe. We all want the people that we represent to be safe in their home, their community, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. That means a lot of things. Ensuring that everyone has a roof over their heads. Investing in transportation so that every town and city has safe roads and bridges. Working to make sure that every family has access to great healthcare. Protecting at-risk populations from discrimination, poverty, and neglect, expanding civil rights for the LGBTQ community, preventing racial prejudice against Black and Brown people, and protecting New Arrivals to our state. Advocating for local police and fire professionals, so that they have the support to keep all of us safe.
And on perhaps a more existential and global level, the work that we all do to combat climate change, to address growing crises in the Commonwealth including housing, substance use, income and racial inequality, and now our very own healthcare system.
Each and every day we face these challenges. And sadly, now, more in parts of America outside of our great Commonwealth, but here too, we face the national epidemic of gun violence. Gun violence that has grown worse due to rising domestic terrorism in America, growing inequality, heated violent rhetoric often directed against the nation’s vulnerable communities, and a growing body of Supreme Court decisions that are stripping away our gun safety laws, including those here in Massachusetts.
There is nothing scarier than the prospect of gun violence, of losing a loved one from being shot to death. Who among us TODAY, whether as elected officials, or just as Massachusetts residents going about our everyday business, does not approach a school, a place of worship, a large crowd, the government buildings, and NOT think about a gunman being nearby? More and more often, all Americans are processing how we would react, if a shooter were to be where we are, and what we would do to stay alive.
How chilling is it that, whether in our minds, or on the quality of our robust democracy, with all of the liberties that flow from our nation and our state, where we are free to go where we wish, when NOW we have to press that button on the front door of an elementary school that we’re visiting, or a synagogue or mosque, waiting patiently for the person on the other side of that door to allow us to enter?
Mr. President, that is largely the reality today in America, and it’s so important to realize that that is as a result of horrible policy choices and advocacy by those who believe that the 2nd Amendment of the United States Constitution is an absolute right that somehow trumps Americans’ right to live in peace, safety, and security.
That’s why today’s debate on strengthening our gun safety laws is so important. I have all of the privilege and benefit in the world to not have any member of my family, or friends lost to gun violence. But because of the level of gun violence in our nation, and that includes homicides and suicides in Massachusetts, really every Massachusetts resident and community knows the impact of gun violence.
A cherished father, mother, brother, sister, spouse, nephew, niece, son or daughter, suddenly gone. How that creates trauma in the rest of the family. How an entire community is impacted. How that contributes to our criminal justice system, as well as contributing in many communities to a continued cycle of poverty, hopelessness, depression, and distress.
That commitment of each of us to the safety and security of our constituents is not anything new. And I want to read the Preamble from the oldest written functioning constitution in the world, with a full recognition that when we are discussing guns and public safety, and therefore the 2nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, to acknowledge the tensions that exist around lawful gun ownership in America, which I believe the SAFER Act properly balances:
Preamble of the Massachusetts Constitution:
“The end of the institution, maintenance, and administration of government, is to secure the existence of the body politic, to protect it, and to furnish the individuals who compose it with the power of enjoying in safety and tranquility their natural rights, and the blessings of life: and whenever these great objects are not obtained, the people have a right to alter the government, and to take measures necessary for their safety, prosperity and happiness.
The body politic is formed by a voluntary association of individuals: it is a social compact, by which the whole people covenants with each citizen, and each citizen with the whole people, that all shall be governed by certain laws for the common good. It is the duty of the people, therefore, in framing a constitution of government, to provide for an equitable mode of making laws, as well as for an impartial interpretation, and a faithful execution of them; that every man may, at all times, find his security in them.
We, therefore, the people of Massachusetts, acknowledging, with grateful hearts, the goodness of the great Legislator of the universe, in affording us, in the course of His providence, an opportunity, deliberately and peaceably, without fraud, violence or surprise, of entering into an original, explicit, and solemn compact with each other; and of forming a new constitution of civil government, for ourselves and posterity; and devoutly imploring His direction in so interesting a design, do agree upon, ordain and establish the following Declaration of Rights, and Frame of Government, as the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.”
Mr. President, I am very proud to have supported gun safety legislation throughout my career as a State Senator and State Representative, including the comprehensive 2014 update, last session responding to the 2022 New York Supreme Court decision that tied Police Chiefs’ hands in determining the suitability of a prospective applicant, banning bumpstocks after the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting, and increasing support for the training of police officers, and their access to body armor, and security grants to non-profits and houses of worship to strengthen public safety protections.
But I became much more deeply engaged in gun safety legislation more recently, when a disturbing reality was revealed in my own district.
On September 10th, 2022, the Boston Globe began the first of its investigative series on a 19th century mill in the town of Littleton, the Houghton Mill, that happened to be the home of the largest concentration of licensed gun dealers, over 80, in the nation. The Globe also reported on some dealers defiantly selling assault weapons that were slightly modified, and the parts of banned assault weapons, contrary to then Attorney General Maura Healey’s 2016 advisory stepping up the enforcement of the Massachusetts assault weapons ban.
The Boston Globe story reported,
“Many of the dealers at the Mill are openly defiant of Healey. The longtime property manager, Jack Lorenz, even has a saying: “Healey language is not spoken at the Mill.”
The Globe found 25 dealers who had displayed or posted ads online for weapons and parts that seemed to go against Healey’s directives on assault weapons, which forbid the sale of their core parts to the general public and hold that cosmetic modifications to the weapons don’t put them in compliance with Massachusetts law.”
Within weeks, I had been contacted by dozens of my Littleton constituents, demanding that I take action, horrified that the largest concentration of gun dealers was in their small, rural town. Later that fall, I spent a quiet Saturday walking through the mill, browing past dealers that had literally hundreds, if not thousands of guns for sale. I entered a few of the dealerships, who explained to me the process of getting a gun permit, including getting a background check, and stopping by my local police station. One gun dealership I entered, the sales clerk calmly showed me a brand new Glock handgun, which is banned for sale in Massachusetts, and stated to me, “While I cannot sell you this gun fully assembled, I can sell it to you in parts, and you can do whatever you wish when you get home.”
That moment was deeply disturbing, and moved me to file legislation to address the loopholes that exist in our gun control laws. I am proud to have filed legislation to address ghost guns and 3D guns, to serialize parts of weapons, to require a state agency to assist local police chiefs in inspecting gun dealers, and to empower the courts and local law enforcement to remove guns from a person who is harassing someone in a manner that could lead to violence. I am deeply grateful to the Majority Leader, and really the entire Senate, that components of these bills are in the SAFER Act before us today.
I would be remiss if I did not thank concerned Littleton residents, town officials, and Littleton Police Chief Matt Pinard for all of their great advocacy, care, and persistence, in taking the fears they had around the large presence of gun dealers in Littleton, and partner with me to propose statewide legislation to reduce gun violence, as well as my staffers David Emer and Colin Hennessy.
The legislation we have before us today is proposing to address gun violence in Massachusetts in several areas that speak to its comprehensive nature:
First, closing loopholes around assault weapons, including ghost guns, 3D guns, the modification of assault weapons, and the serialization of gun parts;
Second, increasing the enforcement of gun dealers, the reporting of data around the ownership of guns and gun violence, and how guns are promoted in Massachusetts;
Third, committing the state to addressing gun violence from a public health perspective, recognizing that gun violence often happens as a result of the realities of poverty, neighborhood disinvestment, community neglect, and hopelessness;
And Fourth, increasing protections for people who are vulnerable to having a violent act committed against them, by partnering with the courts and law enforcement, to increase the safety of everyone, while also empowering more professionals and concerned residents to be engaged in stopping violence before it happens.
Mr. President, I believe that the SAFER Act will be a substantial addition to ensuring that all Massachusetts residents and communities are safer from gun violence, continuing our Commonwealth’s commitment to having the strongest gun safety laws in the nation, and the better quality of life, safety and security for all of us that flows from that. I look forward to strengthening the bill during this debate, and urge my colleagues to support S2572, An Act to Sensibly Address Firearm Violence Through Effective Reform.
End of Speech
