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Massachusetts Gun Laws May Get Tougher

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Massachusetts House Speaker Robert DeLeo is planning to unveil a sweeping gun safety bill on Tuesday which he wants to vote on before the legislative session ends on July 31st.

More than 60 gun control bills were filed at the beginning of the current legislative session just weeks after the massacre at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.   The legislature’s Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security held a series of public hearings across the state last summer.  Committee co-chair State Rep. Harold Naughton said the hearings produced a lot of thoughtful ideas.

" If we can do something to prevent any further tragedies such as happened in Newtown, which is the real driver of this legislation, then I think we will be successful."

A legislative task force issued a report earlier this year with suggestions for reducing gun violence.  It urged standardizing gun licensing procedures and improving mental health background checks.

The record-setting tenure of Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno. The 2011 tornado and its recovery that remade the largest city in Western Massachusetts. The fallout from the deadly COVID outbreak at the Holyoke Soldiers Home. Those are just a few of the thousands and thousands of stories WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief Paul Tuthill has covered for WAMC in his nearly 17 years with the station.