A Cape Cod gun store owner is in the process of kicking off a mad dash to collect tens of thousands of signatures by early October to suspend the enforcement of a new, wide-ranging gun law in Massachusetts while an effort to repeal the measure moves forward.
Opponents of the law, which Gov. Maura Healey signed in July, already took the first step to erase it from the state’s books earlier this month but now face an Oct. 9 deadline to submit more than 49,000 signatures to local election officials to put the statute on hold and place a referendum question on the November 2026 ballot.
Toby Leary, the co-founder of Cape Gun Works, filed paperwork Monday with the state’s campaign finance office to set up the “The Civil Rights Coalition,” a move that allows the group to solicit donations in what could be a multi-year battle against a law Beacon Hill Democrats have argued is intended to keep the public safe but critics say creates cumbersome hurdles to ownership.
In an interview with the Herald, Leary said the law is a broad overreach of state government’s authority and an infringement on Second Amendment rights.
He said the coalition he is heading up is prepared to tap a network of hundreds of gun stores, firearms groups, and sportsmen’s clubs to amass the signatures necessary to temporarily shelve the statute.
“Gun rights are civil rights and it’s our belief that, just like other civil rights that have been hard fought in our country’s history, this is one worth fighting for,” he said. “If you allow the right to keep and bear arms to be eroded, then every other civil right enumerated in our Bill of Rights could just as easily be taken away.”
But Gov. Maura Healey could upend the process to suspend the law using a procedural tactic by adding an “emergency preamble” to the statute, a spokesperson for Secretary of State William Galvin’s office said.
Healey can add the “emergency” language to the law at any point — even after opponents file enough signatures to suspend the measure. That move would immediately head off or void a voter-approved suspension, but still allow for a repeal campaign.
A spokesperson for Healey did not say whether the governor planned to deem the law an “emergency” statute.
“Gov. Healey knows that Massachusetts’ strong gun laws save lives, and she was proud to sign the state’s most significant gun safety legislation in a decade,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
Leary said it would be a “really bad look” if Healey decided to add emergency language to the law.
“It would be very interesting for the governor, who is a member of the Democratic Party, who decries the threat to democracy all the time, to actually thwart the democratic process,” Leary said.
The proposal Healey signed this summer bars people under 21 from owning semiautomatic rifles or shotguns, though those between 18 and 21 can still own and possess firearms with an identification card.
The statute also requires prospective gun owners to undergo live fire training.
Democrats wrote into the law language taking aim at “ghost guns” by requiring the serialization of all firearms, including those that are made at home, and provisions creating penalties for the “possession, creation, and transfer” of all untraceable guns.
The law changed the definition of “machine gun” to include bump stocks, trigger cranks, Glock switches, and other modifications, now subject to legal penalties.
Lawmakers also clarified how to determine whether a firearm is an “assault-style weapon” and the circumstance under which a person may continue to possess that type of gun and large capacity feeding devices they already own, according to a summary of the statute prepared by Attorney General Andrea Campbell in response to the referendum effort.
Rep. Michael Day, a Stoneham Democrat and chief architect of the law, described those behind the repeal effort as “extreme groups” and maintained that the statute is both constitutional and “sensible gun control.”
Day said arguments that the law he helped write is an infringement on residents’ Second Amendment rights is not “a particularly serious discussion point.”
“I think the laws that we have and the law we just passed really do check a balance between making sure responsible gun owners can continue to carry as they see and making sure that those who can’t do so responsibly don’t have the wherewithal to do that,” Day told the Herald.
Day did not say whether he would help stand up a group to oppose the repeal effort.
“Let’s wait and see. Initially, they said they were gonna get on the ballot in 2024. It sounds like that target has moved to 2026,” he said. “Who knows if they’re going to turn in the signatures? Who knows if they’re really going to pursue this?”
Leary said he already has donations pledges from multiple gun stores around the state and has reached out to figures with national prominence — he declined to offer any names before details were hashed out — for help.
He said multiple gun stores and firearms clubs have committed to donating more than $100,000 to the cause.
“I believe that we could quickly multiply that,” he said. “It’s going to take every penny. We’re not delusional at what this could cost. It really could be a very expensive campaign. The way it’s shaping up, it’s a sprint, not a marathon. We have a ticking deadline.”
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