Massachusetts is not the gun-control beacon it once was
NEVER BEFORE had your correspondent been forcibly escorted out of a shop. But when sellers at the Littleton Mill, America’s largest cluster of federally licensed gun dealers, realised they had a reporter in their midst they swiftly kicked her out. Just 45 minutes’ drive north-west of Boston, the old textile mill has operated—in a county that Joe Biden won by a 45-point margin in 2020—for a decade. But tucked behind a fast road, with no signs visible from the street, most locals did not know it existed. That changed when the Boston Globe published an article on it in September. Five months later the Feds raided the place, following the arrest of a 28-year-old dealer for selling guns to a straw buyer that were traced to the scene of a South Boston shooting.
To many the Mill seems out of place. Progressives laud Massachusetts for its stern gun-control regime. A 1998 bill banned the sale and possession of new assault weapons and raised the penalties for gun crimes. To avoid steep fines dealers had to make their guns childproof, fit them with state-approved trigger locks and give customers safety warnings. The number of licensed dealers fell from 950 to 469 between 2000 and 2001. Today prospective gun-owners must jump through hoops to get licensed, including applying for a permit with the local police, who, until last year, could deny requests at their discretion. (An elderly couple was reportedly refused one after saying that aliens had visited their home.)
Massachusetts now boasts the third-lowest gun-ownership rate in the country, ahead of only Hawaii and New Jersey. Few guns means fewer gun deaths. In 2020, 3.7 in every 100,000 Bay Staters died by gunfire; nationally 13.6 did.
2023-06-29 09:38:40
Article from www.economist.com
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