While the exact number of civilian-owned firearms is difficult to calculate due to a variety of factors — including unregistered weapons, the illegal trade and global conflict — the Swiss based Small Arms Survey researchers estimate that Americans own 393 million of the 857 million civilian guns available, which is around 46% of the world’s civilian gun cache.

The newest threat to citizen safety is the gun industry’s move to “modularization” of its firearms. Briefly stated this is taking components of the gun and categorizing each one as a “part.” Only one “part” is classified as “serialized,” meaning it is that part and that part only that is registered with the state. In some cases it is merely the trigger mechanism that is the serialized component meaning all other parts of the gun may be purchased without a license and without any form of registration. Barrels, slides, firing pins, recoil springs, hand grips all may be purchased at retail or via the internet without proof of age, certification or registration. This poses an enormous threat to forensic ballistics in police work. Easily changing a barrel and firing pin nullifies any possibility of tracing a recovered shell casing back to a specific gun if the original barrel and firing pin have be placed back on the weapon. There is no record of the second barrel and firing pin registered anywhere with any authority. They can be disposed of and the only record of their existence would be the recorded sale by the vendor and that could be any of thousands of vendors located throughout the United States and even in other countries. Organization like the NRA and GOAL are leading proponents of modularization. Nullifying the ability for law enforcement to be able to trace casings recovered at a crime scene is not, by any means, protected by the Constitution. Contact your state and local representatives and make known your concern about this threat to Bay State residents.

In 2020 there were 135,623 firearms sold through retail outlets in the State of Massachusetts. 87,200 handguns…14 machine guns…31,860 rifles and 16,549 shotguns. These figures are based on data gathered by the Massachusetts Department of Criminal Justice Information Services.

The Massachusetts Crime Gun Database for 2018 contains only 215 rifles and 972 pistols. Of that number the Four Seasons gun shop leads the list with 94 recovered weapons. The gun shop in second place had 22 on the list.

The Massachusetts Attorney General’s office describes an “assault weapon as “a semiautomatic rifle that has an ability to accept a detachable magazine and has at least 2 of— (i) a folding or telescoping stock; (ii) a pistol grip that protrudes conspicuously beneath the action of the weapon; (iii) a bayonet mount; (iv) a flash suppressor or threaded barrel designed to accommodate a flash suppressor; and (v) a grenade launcher…” Almost all retail gun shops within the state sell weapons that accept detachable magazines and have at least two, and sometimes three, of the qualifying accessories to categorize them as “assault weapons.”