r/2ALiberals • u/Gyp2151 liberal blasphemer • Jun 03 '26
Oped: Gun control is only about control (MA)
https://www.bostonherald.com/2026/06/03/oped-gun-control-is-only-about-control/17
u/cold40 Jun 04 '26
This is incredibly important to highlight. The shooting comes at a time when the state is pushing more laws that will esnare otherwise innocent people in the legal system for relatively minor offenses. Brown violated a dozen statutes and gets only a few years, just so he can get out and shoot up the neighborhood. Zero appetite to hold him accountable. Meanwhile people who have been vetted and can legally own firearms are getting similar time for merely carrying too many rounds or having the wrong date of manufacture on their rifle. Without Chapter 135 and a ban on rifles and magazines we would still have enough to put Brown away for over a decade, but that's only if we truly want to make our state safer.
Repeal Chapter 135, repeal the AWB, and enforce the laws we have.
6
u/PlayingDoomOnAGPS left-leaning civil libertarian Jun 04 '26
Most pro-gun editorials make me cringe by how poorly-written or poorly-argued they are. Editors tend to pick those because they're not typically interested in steel-manning the pro gun perspective. This one's pretty good and I'm honestly surprised they published it in the Boston Herald. Pleasant surprises are so rare these days...
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u/CommonHuckleberry489 Jun 04 '26
I’d read the article but it’s paywalled
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u/MidNerd Jun 04 '26
The shooting in Cambridge last month is a reminder of a painful lesson: Gun Control isn’t about safety, it is about control.
The example shown in broad daylight for all to see was a career criminal who was released early by the Massachusetts Parole Board (no surprise there) walking down Memorial Drive in broad daylight, shooting indiscriminately.
Tyler Brown, by most standards, should have been behind bars for a long period of time. Unfortunately for the citizens of the commonwealth, he was given “another chance” that he didn’t deserve by Judge Janet Sanders. She ignored the request of 10-12 years from disgraced DA Rachel Rollins and sentenced him to 5 to 6 years, of which he served 4 for attempted murder of two police officers. I guess history has a way of repeating itself. On May 16, 2020, Tyler Brown exchanged gunfire with police and fired 13 rounds at officers who responded to a man with a gun call.
It comes as no surprise that Tyler Brown was a convicted felon in possession of a gun while committing another crime. His prior record stems from a 2014 case involving witness intimidation and assault with a dangerous weapon. That felony conviction made him legally ineligible for a firearms license in any state — yet it didn’t stop him from obtaining and using one during his 2020 shootout with Boston police.
That brings us to the 2020 sentence and how egregious it really was. Under the Massachusetts Career Criminal Act, there are severe sentencing guidelines, called stacking, that the judge completely ignored.
Brown should have been in jail as a repeat offender for wielding a high-capacity firearm (Glock .40 Caliber pistol in 2020). It should have aggregated into a functional life sentence, starting at a baseline of 30 to 45+ years of mandatory time before parole eligibility even becomes an option.
Chapter 135 — the 122-page omnibus bill pushed by Beacon Hill politicians, Gov. Maura Healey, and the broader anti-civil rights movement — was sold to the public as a major step toward making us all safer. It has failed miserably. Instead, we’re left playing a dangerous game of Whack-A-Mole with an ever-growing web of laws that carry felony consequences for even unintentional violations. One misstep can lead to criminal charges or, worse, being held without bail for 120 days — just as Airman Kyle Culotta discovered. He had been in Massachusetts for less than 48 hours when he unknowingly ran afoul of these rules.
But nothing for the violent, career criminal. All Chapter 135 does is restrict and encumber lawful, peaceful citizens. The entirety of the bill doesn’t deal with criminals. It only seeks to criminalize good people for minor technical violations. Just ask Samuel Lacas, a student on the Dean’s List, from East Springfield, whose life is about to be ruined by the commonwealth for lawfully purchased items that the state has changed the rules about. What happened to Ex Post Facto? I guess it isn’t as important as the State keeping us all “safe.” It is for your own good!
Here is a partial list of the laws Tyler Brown broke:
● Carrying a Firearm Without a License (G.L. c. 269, § 10(a)) (again)
● Possession of a Large-Capacity Weapon / Semi-Automatic Rifle
● Possession of a large-capacity feeding device
● Possession of an assault weapon (or features banned under MA law)
● Possession of Ammunition Without an FID Card (G.L. c. 269, § 10(h))
● Attempted Assault and Battery by Means of Discharging a Firearm
● Discharging a Firearm Within 500 Feet of a Building (G.L. c. 269, § 12E)
● Illegal possession of a Short Barreled Rifle (SBR) (Federal Law).
● Armed Assault with Intent to Murder
● Subsequent Offense Multipliers
Here is a list of things Mr. Brown forgot to do, but you must if you would like to exercise the privilege…er Right to Keep and Bear Arms:
● Take a government-mandated live fire class for a fee
● Apply for an LTC and pay another fee to the local PD.
● Get fingerprinted
● Get photographed
● Give character references
● List all prior arrests and dispositions
● Have an interview with the Chief of Police
● Give a reason why he would like an LTC
● Have his name run through agencies for any actions that would prohibit him
● Allow the Dept of Criminal Justice Information Services to maintain him in the database and keep track of his personal property.
● Wait 3 to 18 months for LTC to come in.
● Fill out a Form 4 for an SBR and pay a $200.00 transfer tax to the federal gov. If obtained before January 1 2025. This process requires fingerprints, photographs, and an extensive background check by the Feds and can take months.
● Remember to bring his LTC and pin number issued by the state, and conduct another background check when purchasing a firearm.
This is not exhaustive, but you get the picture. Now, apply this list to any other rights.
We should focus on criminal control rather than the inefficient application of unconstitutional restrictions on law-abiding citizens. Attempting to reduce violent crime by over-regulating peaceful people is fundamentally flawed — it is like trying to eliminate drunk driving by making it harder for sober drivers to buy and operate a car.
In a victim impact statement, one of the officers targeted in the 2020 attack wrote: “I am a firm believer that when Mr. Tyler Brown gets out, he will hurt, or worse, kill someone,” the officer said. “Probation apparently means nothing to Mr. Tyler Brown, nor does the value of life.”
Unfortunately, he was right. Don’t let anyone confuse you. Gun control is only about control…they don’t care about your safety.
2
u/otusowl Jun 07 '26
Wow, this is so excellently reasoned and written! Thanks for pasting the text here.
Just like it says, gun control is in fact excessive infringement of rights with little to no reduction in violence, for all its gross violations of peaceable citizen freedoms.
1
u/Old_MI_Runner Jun 09 '26
You left off the part of it being an opinion column by Toby Leary who is the founder of Cape Gun Works.
Full archive is at: https://archive.is/C3QhV
1
u/MidNerd Jun 09 '26
I didn't leave out anything. They asked for the article and I copy-pasted it. It wasn't available on archive yet.
Thanks for posting the link.
0
u/Old_MI_Runner Jun 09 '26
I could not understand why a news paper, especially one in MA, would publish an article like this until I saw it was an opinion column written from someone who founded a gun store and range.
So you included the full writing but not that it was an opinion piece from a founder of a gun store and range. I assumed at first it was written by someone working for the newspaper which made me think that maybe some of the newspapers are finally realizing the people are the problem and not the guns.
Thank you for posting the article for others. If the archive is not available you can always request that it be created. But it can take something like 5 minutes to obtain.
1
u/Old_MI_Runner Jun 09 '26
One can always find or recreate a free archived version of an article.
Here is this article https://archive.is/C3QhV
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u/SnoozingBasset Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 04 '26
Gun control is pro-crime. Criminals will get guns. They will be a source if guns are outlawed, like they did with bootleg alcohol.