When I visited home over the past long weekend, I filled out my first Massachusetts midterm election ballot. Question 9 caught my eye: the “Firearms Regulations Referendum” asks whether House Bill 4885, enacted in 2024, should be upheld. Voting yes would maintain a ban on “assault-style firearms.” It would also push for stricter regulations when registering a firearm, permitting courts to order firearm surrender and allowing certain school and healthcare workers to request that a court deny gun ownership. For something that seemed like a no-brainer to me, and assumingly to any other Massachusetts voter, I wondered who would possibly vote no.
On my bus back to campus the next day, somewhere in Western Massachusetts, I spotted a billboard in between the foliage flaunting huge text: “VOTE NO ON 9.” I wondered: does lax gun control really have enough support in Massachusetts for a political movement like this to succeed?
Wanting to know more, I found a group online called the Civil Rights Coalition, the main organizers of the “Vote No on Question 9” campaign in Massachusetts. They argue that new regulations impact the privacy and freedom of people who already own guns, turning “law-abiding citizens into criminals overnight and forcing honest citizens to reapply for rights they’ve held for decades.”
It was intriguing to learn about a push to reject gun reform, especially following the school shooting in Bend, Oregon, in which three children and one teacher were killed. Even though Massachusetts has some of the lowest rates of firearm mortality in the country, this issue is closer to me than I thought. As a prominent blue state, I believed favorable views towards gun control would be a given. It turns out it’s not that simple.
— Adah Gowan in Vote now, relax later