It's Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ Costin's Radio.
All right, everybody, welcome on back. It is nine o'clock, about nine oh six, actually coming up on nine oh six thirty five and say Wednesday night. So today, in a very interesting development, Governor Moore Healey UH issued an emergency preamble to a piece of legislation that she signed. I believe it was in late July, and normally when a governor issues an emergency preamble, he or she issues that at the signing of the bill. But there's a
story behind the story. The governor today in his statement, I don't know that the governor made herself available, said this gun safety law bands ghost guns, strengthens the Extreme Risk Protection Order Statute to keep guns out of the hands of people who are a danger to themselves or others,
and invests in violence prevention programs. It is important that these measures go into effect without delay, which of course raises the question why sign it today and why not have signed it in July when the bill was signed by the governor. To help us explain that, we are joined tonight by Massachusetts State Senator Peter Durant. Senator Durant welcome, Welcome back to Nightside. How are you.
Thanks for having me on, Dan.
I'm doing well, okay, So we can get into some of the specifics about this bill. But am I incorrect when I say that normally, when an emergency preamble is signed, it's attached to the bill at the time of signing.
Yeah, actually it's normally. Most of the times the emergency preambles are voted on in the legislature prior to enactment. So a bill that has to go through quickly needs that emergency preamal is voted on it in the legislature and then it goes to the governor with's one. But you're right, in certain circumstances, if the governor feels that that that bill now needs to become law much more quickly, then they can attach that and they typically would do
it at signing. So say, it's very highly unusual that it's done now, and I think we all kind of know why they decided to do it now.
Yeah, we're gonna we're going to get into that, and again we have we have time to explain this. But this was a very comprehensive, uh piece of gun control legislation which again as the governor said, be ads ghost guns, and I don't know anybody is in favor of Is there anyone that favors ghost guns that you're aware of.
Not that we're aware of. In fact, Dan, as this bill was making its way through the legislature, that's something that we as the Republican Caucus, had advocated for the whole time. We said, look, just just do the ghostgun portion of this. Everybody can agree on that. There were other pieces to like the so called glock switches in things of that nature, and we said, just pass those and we can then argue the other things. But no, nobody has had has a problem with banning this so called ghost guns.
Yeah, but there were some elements of the legislation that the Democrats, you know, put into the bill, which people are concerned about. And as a consequence, there's a petition drive, an initiative petition drive underway which would do two things. If a certain number of signatures I think it was roughly forty thousand signatures were submitted through the towns, cities and towns and onto the Secretary of State's office. By I think it's October twenty third, this piece of legislation
would not have gone into effect. It would have been an effect suspended.
Correct, that's correct, that you're spot on. So the law goes into effect, or at least was supposed to go into effect on October twenty third, so the petition, the initiative petition was undertaken. Had they collected the signatures and had them all certified prior to that, then they would have it would have prevented the law from taking effect. So that was the whole.
And then the second aspect of the signats to collection is to get this law in front of the general public on the ballot in twenty twenty six, which is two years, two years away.
That's right. It was too early, it was I'm sorry, it's too late to get it onto the this year's ballot. So you would you would delay it and then it would become the referendum question in one of the referendum questions in twenty six.
Okay, so I know what that what the governor's argument would be. She's not here with us tonight, but I'm sure that she would say, this is an important piece of legislation. Lives would be saved and being ghost guns. And that's why I sat to sign the emergency preamble. What is what is your argument from the other side of the aisle, having having done this, so what's wrong with what she did today?
Well, our argument is is, actually there's a few things that we want to talk about, which is, first of all, Massachusetts has a very low instance of gun violence, especially among sportsmen in those who are legally authorized to have guns. You know, we think that the current system, or the system that was in place prior to this worked, which is you've got your LTC or license to carry, You've got that through your local police department, and those things work.
So you know, we see that Massachusetts is a very low risk state for gun violence. I think I think it was weird number where we're like, we're like number one or two in the least amount of gun violence. So we do very well here. And so that's our argument is this wasn't especially needed. We can make an argument that they were, you know, we wanted to get rid of the ghost guns, but that's not a huge
prevalent problem here at this time. So there was no reason to do this bill in such a quick fashion as we did it last last summer anyway, but to now go through this process it's really a slap in the face, more than a slap in the face to everybody who has worked hard to have their voices heard through this petition drive.
So I assume that from your point of view and from the point of view of the people who were working in the petition drive, we hopefully we'll hear from some of them tonight. They were engaging in in an exercise in democracy by trying to secure not easy to do, by the way, forty thousand signatures in a relatively brief
period of time. And maybe they would have got the forty thousand, maybe they wouldn't have, but either way, that effort has been short circuited and curtailed quickly by the governor with a stroke of a pen.
Yeah, you know, and it's been curtail and I want to I do want to say, you know, we shouldn't give up the fight. We still need to go through this process because if we want to get this as a referendum question in twenty six this is the first step. And so yes, we've gone through our constitutional process to get you know, make some change. This is your local democracy at work, and so we need those signatures. We need to continue getting them and let the process continue
to play out. And really these you know, everybody who was collecting has done such a yeoman's work on this. Because they were behind the eight ball right from the start. They had a very very short window in which to get these, and they put a full court press on. They did a lot of work, and hats off to them. It was it was obviously through their effort that the governor said, oh, oh, well they're getting close. We have to do something.
Yeah, So they're almost penalized by their own success to some extent. Now, I'm sure the governor would say, look, this is an important piece of legislation, and if they want to get it on the ballot, they have plenty of time to get it on the ballot. It's they got to get more signatures. Forty thousand signatures doesn't get it on the ballot. They got to get a certain amount of signatures. And we get into that a little bit, and then I think they have to get another group
of signatures, separate group of signatures again. So it's it's it's and it has to pass mustered by the Secretary of State's office, so it's it's difficult. It's not an easy procedure per se, but it takes a lot of people ours. So the governor is going to say, hey, you know, if the governor was asked, if this is such an important piece of legislation, why did you attach an emergency preamble to it the day you signed it? What do you think should say?
I don't know, because that's that's the most valid question. I mean, you know, to go out and then sin this at the eleventh hour clearly shows that she was worried that this law might not take effect. Now again, I think you read early as we started the segment that you know, these pieces of the of the bill have to go forward, and this is some very important part of it, but you know, there's a lot of other parts of this bill that are going to go forward,
and they're going to hurt people in Massachusetts. They're going to hurt legal gun owners. And we can get into some of the specific.
We want to get in. I'd like to do that. I think we've set the table properly. I think everybody kind of understands this. We're a little bit into the weeds, but we're at a commercial break. We're going to go to phone calls as well. Uh, if you're a gun owner, if you're an opponent of gun ownership for yourself or for others, feel free to join the conversation. Six one, seven, two, five, four to ten thirty six one seven, nine, three one, ten thirty. We'll get you on. I've got some callers already.
I'd love to fill the phone lines up and we'll get to the calls. But we'll also talk more with State Senator Peter Durant, who is a Republican. Peter, you represent what communities in central Massachusetts and Worcester County and elsewhere.
Yep.
I represent what's known as the Western Hampshire District. It's twenty two counties. Essentially, it's twenty two towns, twenty twenty two season towns. Yeah, hey, I'm sorry, it's ONNY two kinds. Yeah, twenty two cities in towns in central Massachusetts, right in the heart of Wister County.
Perfect. All right, we'll take a quick break, be back with State Senator Peter Durant talking about this piece of gun this piece of legislation, obviously, advocates call it gun control reform. I'm sure who are opposed to it probably have some different words how they would describe it. Some of those words probably we got us on the radio. But we'll take a break and be right back with State Senator Peter Durant. More calls and conversation and questions for Peter right after this.
Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World, Lake Side Studios on w b Z to News Radio.
Peter. I have full lines here, and if it's okay with you, you can you can add anything you would like, but I'd love to get the callers incorporated in this as well. And yeah, I think any nothing that we've really missed it, I think we've laid it out pretty well.
Okay, I agree.
All right, let's keep rolling here that we're going to start it off. First up this hour is this is Toby Leary. Toby is with what's called the Civil Rights Coalition. He is a Guns to Our owner here on the Cape. I had him on a few weeks ago, and Toby, I was surprised to find out that now that this law has gone into effect and you were unable to stop it by the governor's decision to sign the emergency Preamble, you won't be able to sell shotguns.
Yeah. Well, it's interesting because the government and all of its wisdom came out today with a new advisory memorandum to law enforcement and gun stores and said, don't worry about that pesky thing that we just signed into law today, because you can go ahead and violate the new law and sell whatever long guns you were selling before, as long as they don't violate another part of the law of Massachusetts. But as far as this law is concerned, we're going to let you go ahead and break it.
So that's what they told.
At Explain to me what's going on there. I mean, this law has been rushed into effect. What's going on here?
Yeah?
Literally, that's the guidance that they gave today. It's the second day in a row they issued a memorandum, and the first memorandum was we're going to take as much time as we need to implement this law, but you, on the other hand, are going to have to abide by it. And that's exactly what they did today. They didn't give any guidance on the poor guy who wakes up tomorrow with an FID card that possesses a semi
automatic shotgun a rifle, what he's supposed to do. But they told gun stores that, yeah, go ahead and keep selling the long guns that you've been selling, even though it violates this part of the law that we pasked requiring them to be on a roster. And we talked about this extensively on your show a couple of weeks ago, Dan, and they said, go ahead and do that. We'll get the new Firearms Control Advisory Board up to speed at
some point whenever they're seated. Right now, we have the Gun Control Advisory Board that needs to be unseated and these new these new people need to be seated. Once that's all done, will come out with the list. But in the meantime, carry on. Don't worry about this pesky law that we rushed in seventy one days after it was originally signed.
So I'm confused. Are you familiar what Toby's telling us here?
Yeah?
I think. And first of all, Toby, thank you for all the work that you've done. You have really taken a bull by the horns on this, and everyone in Massachusetts, oh's you a debt of gratitude for all you've done and will continue to do on this. Yeah, and you know we've seen this actually as well. They did it in the supplemental budget that was passed as well, the Basics firearm basic firearm training, which had no parameters around it, and the Mass Day police who were to implement it.
He said, we have no idea what this is supposed to do or how we're supposed to do this. They just change that part as well and said, well, you know what, we're not gon and we're not going to worry about that for eighteen months. So this is just indicative dan of a horrible bill that has been passed. It was passed, it was rushed, they had to get something done this which we just have to do something, and you're seeing the effects of it, which are nobody
understands it. The portions of it. There are portions of it that we're not going to enforce because those aren't quite as important. But I have talked to police officers who are equally confused. But you know, they're saying, listen, we're trying to enforce a law, or we're going to be required to enforce a law that we don't know how to enforce. And so it's just an absolute disaster what we're looking at right now.
When Toby was on the show a couple of weeks ago, actually I think it was more than a couple of weeks ago. Toby. We had a SoundBite from President Biden which Rob found for us while we were doing the show.
I don't know if he's able to reload catered in which President Biden advised people back a couple of years ago that all you needed was a shotgun, and that he had told his wife that she ever heard noise outside and was troubled by it, just take that shotgun and pump off a couple of rounds and whoever's who's ever out there would would would get get away pretty quickly. Rob, you don't have that sound by do you still looking for it? We'll play that a little bit later on.
But the point was that as I understand that, as this law was passed and now in law now, I'm not sure how it's going to be enforced. People theoretically are not able to buy a shotgun if they decide they want to buy a shotgun.
Correct, well, and so yeah, and so if I may just jump in, you you have to have a LTC. It used to be able to have an f ID to buy a shotgun. If it's a semi automatic, then you have to have an LTC. And the problem is is that those who don't have an LTC or can't get one. And that's the problem is you can't get an LTC for whatever reason. And you own a you legally owned a semi automatic shuckgu and you you now are a felon. And and the second thing, And I think Toby would ask.
Question, I'm not I'm a little confused. I think of a regular shotgun. You throw the you click the thing close with the with the the amo in there, and you fire the shotgun. It's almost like, are there automatic shotguns? I've never heard of that.
No, it would be a Tobey you can jump in. But it's a semi automatic shotgun. So uh, In a you have a pump action shotgun, you have a single, single shot. So in a in a pump action you you would load five or three or five shells into the gun, you shoot it, you pump it manually and then put another one in. A semi automatic loads itself after the shot is fired. So just like a semi automatic.
Right again, I don't think that the shotguns are used in I mean, they're used in robberies, I know that, but they're not used in these mass shootings, et cetera. Do you have the sound bite? Rub okay, This is what the President said a couple of years ago, which seemed to almost encourage people, particularly if you lived in a rural area, get yourself a shotgun. That's really all you need. He was basically saying, you don't need an AK forty seven, you don't need an AR fifteen. A
shotgun will do the trick. This is President Biden.
If you want to protect yourself, get a double barrel shotgun, have the shelves twelve gay shotgun. And I promise you, as I told my wife, we live in an area that's wooded and somewhat secluded, said Jill, if there's ever a problem, just walk out on the balcony here or walk out, put that double barrel shotgun and fired too blacks outside the house. I promise you was ever coming in is not going to You don't need AR fifteen.
It's harder to aim, it's harder to use, and in fact, you don't need thirty rounds to protect yourself.
So that was his argument against you know, a semi automatic AR fifteen's or AK forty seven's, and now in Massachusetts, anyone who wants to follow the president's advice. They may have a trouble, they may have trouble going forward buying a shotgun.
It's just it's just a ridiculously stupid Steve And I remember him saying that. And by the way, if you discharge a weapon within five hundred feet of a house, that's against the law. So what he is actually telling you is to break the law here in Massachusetts.
If you if you think that someone messing around in your driveway, you'll look at to steal your catalytic converter or your car. You step out of the porch, you know, you fire something, not at it, but you fire shot in the other scarable way. You breaking the law in Massachusetts.
Yeah, I would, I would. I would encourage you not to do that. That would be a bad idea.
Tell it, well, tell me why how are you gonna You're gonna say, hey, don't.
Well, yeah, Senator Durant points out it's uh, you know, illegal to discharge of firearm within five hundred feet of the house. And they actually part of this bill just strengthen those laws, uh in this bill, you know, and made the penalties for doing that even more severe. So I would recommend people don't discharge of firearm unless their life is in danger, you know, uh, in protection of
themselves or someone else. But more importantly, uh as as a senator pointed out, this, this really focuses in on the people who've already gone through all the steps already in background.
Yeah, it's incredible that, uh, Peter, I was unaware that they that you cannot shoot a shotgun. I mean when I heard what the President said, that thought that made a lot of sense. You know, you're in your house and all of a sudden you hear some people, you know, you know, fifty feet away in your backyard, and you now they're up to no good. So if you just fire it into the air to scare them, that's you could be arrested for that in Massachusetts. Let's change that.
Yeah, that would be illegal. And and and as Toby just said, you you you really And again I'm never advocating that somebody who fire, but you are. You can't fire at somebody unless your life is an imminent danger. So and somebody being outside if you could, again it's it's really crazy, but you have to retreat, So you would you should be going inside and letting them go do whatever they do. It's it's just you know, the shoot them.
You can only shoot them if they come into your house, if they in Massachusetts, if they just want to steal your car or rip off some packages from your front porch, you gotta got to encourage her to gun come in eus before you can shoot him in trouble.
You might even be in trouble in your own house if you had a way to escape and they really wanted to come after you about it. So it's uh.
Yeah, okay, gentlemen. Uh, Toby, I got full line, So I'm going to get some more phone calls. I just got to take a news break for joining us and helping to clarify that I learned something tonight. Let me tell you. Uh it's uh that is that lost. That's alaar. I think Peter, that should be changed. I mean, I'm serious.
If you're if your wife is at home alone some night and she hears people outside and she doesn't want to go outside and investigate it, but she wants to break a gun with her and if if all of a sudden they started to come at her, she's got to go into the living room, uh and wait for them to come through the front door.
I mean yeah, and you know we've tried over the years, and it is an effort that goes forward. I believe every term. It's called the castle drop doctrine, and it's it's something that says you do not you're not forced to retreat. And so but at this time in Massachusetts, the law says that if you if you have a place, if you can retreat, you must retreat.
Cool. Yeah, well we will continue with our callers. Ed with State Senator Peter Durant. I think that's nuts. I just think that's absolutely nuts. Peter. You're in your home and all of a sudden, you think that someone break you doors a lot? Do you think someone's trying to break into your home? You got you got even discharge the weapon as a discouragement that Welcome to Massachusetts, folks. If you go now again, if you're the governor, you
have state police outside your home, which is important. Okay, So therefore you don't have to worry about that.
Yeah, and you better and you better not invite them in because that's a whole other superhe I was.
Being sarcastic when I said that, Hey, gentlemen, come out of the house. That's have a beer before because I want to shoot you. No, no, no, I just think that what then, what President Biden said made a lot of sense. I mean, you know, there are there are certain parts of the country where I think you need an AK forty seven or an AR. If you're living out in Montana and you've got wolves that are going after your your cattle, you may need an AK forty seven.
I don't necessarily think that you need an AK forty seven if you're if you're living in an apartment building down down Boston. But I just think we've we've missed these laws up so badly. I'm going to get to more phone calls. I promise all of you. You've waited very patiently. Jason stay there, Darren and Travis would get to all of you. We got one line at six one seven, two, five, four, ten thirty and one at
six one, seven, ninth, three, one, ten thirty. The more you talk about these laws, the crazier they see, because obviously there's no law that criminals are ever are ever
going to observe. I mean, we'll be back with State Senator Peter Durant, who makes a lot of sense to me, and I congratulate the people of his district for having the wisdom to have promoted him from the State House of Representatives to the State Senate, because I think you need voices in both chambers, and there's only four Massachusetts Republican state senators out of forty. We'll be back right after this.
You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on w b Z, Boston's news radio.
We are talking with State Senator Peter Durant about this Massachusetts gun law which passed some controversy last July, signed by the governor, and there was a group of people, including Toby Leary, who he had just heard from a Cape Cod gun store, who had been collecting signatures to suspend it. Its implementation was due to which now will
go into effect on Trouble twenty third. They've been done well, they've been doing very well with the signatures, and they hope to get this in the ballot in twenty twenty six. Let me go right back to the calls. I spent a lot of time with Toby. I can't spend that much time with everyone, but let's go to Jason in Norwood. Jason, you are off the State Senator Peter Duram say, had a senator drink? All right ahead?
Jason Well, Senator, are you hearing me?
Okay? I do, Jason, okay.
I just want to mention if I sound nervous tonight. What you're hearing in my voice isn't nerves, it's anger. I am very angry. I'm one of the volunteers, have been collecting signatures and I'm struggling to stay calm for this call.
You're doing fine so far. Go ahead, Jason Well.
Ben I want to mention something very important that the governor neglected to mention when she's signed that emergency preamble. It's critically important for parents of school children and the school children high school is in middle schools because as of the signing of that preamble, it is now prohibited for high schoolers and middle schools to bring pepper spray into the schools unless they have applied and received a
permit to do that from their police department. The governor didn't bother to mention that, but your listeners are hearing it for the first time tonight. Parents, I urge you go through the back pass, go through the purses, et cetera, and take those pepper sprays away. From your children. I don't know how likely it is that it would happen, but if your kids take pepper spray into the schools tomorrow, they could be arrested and the charge would be a serious one.
And by the way, pepper spray is legal in Massachusetts.
It is legal, but not anymore for teenagers high school here.
No, I understand. I just want to I want to be to realize and I encourage any woman that I know they should have been the spray, particularly if they're going to be out at night, in their purse, in their wallet, or somehow on them, because it could be a very effective deterred Okay, do you have a question for Senator Durand as.
Well or just so much a question? I'd like to make an observation about the reason for my anger. It's the governor's raw abuse of power. You know, tens of
thousands of people have signed that petition already. I think when we started collecting three weeks ago, I think the governor was probably laughing at us because it's incredibly difficult to collect fifty thousand signatures in the four weeks available to us, and we are nearly there, and the governor realized that, and in a panic, she exhibited her willingness to engage in a raw abuse of power. It's a disgrace. It's disrespectful to the tens of thousands who have already
signed the petition. It's disrespectful to the hundreds and hundreds of volunteers such as myself, who have been collecting the signatures. She has I hope you won't bleep this, but she has flipped a certain digit in the middle of her hand at the residents and the citizens of this commonwealth.
Okay, that's your opinion. It wasn't It wasn't cut out because you were a gentleman in the way you described it. She basically told a lot of people in a very different way that they're number one.
Exactly.
So that's all I had.
Roll and call anytime. I got three other folks that'd like to get to and I got to get to a break very effective phone call. Jason.
Thank you, thank you, good night, Thank you Jason for all you've done.
I'll tell you, but those signatures are still going to go toward getting this issue on the ballot. So it's it's not as if what they have done has gone for not And I think that's important tops as well.
And that is important they keep collecting the signatures, keep doing the work. The the fighters is. We may have lost that that this portion this round, but the fight continues on absolutely, and.
I do think that frankly, uh, the governor was probably a little bit concerned about the number of signatures that had already been filed, and she wanted to defend a law that she obviously fervently believes it. I was unaware of the prohibition included in the bill which would prevent young girls from young boy boys or girls from carrying pepper spray.
There's a lot in this in this building, and you know, and one thing that I just wanted to brief and I'll make it quick, is you know, when we talked to about banning the semi automatic weapons for those who don't have a license to carry no TC. We have people who come from out of state to go hunting here. It is bird season. You typically would use or many people would use a semi automatic shotgun to hunt pheasant and quail, a partridge, whatever you make, woodcock, whatever it
may be, you'd use a semi automatic shotgun. And people come from out of state. There's tourism dollars to be lost there. They can no longer come here because they can't bring their weapon, and so they're not going to hunt in Massachusetts anymore.
Well, I think they certainly have are going to have full warning here. Let's take a quick break, coming right back on nightside, going to get everybody, and I promise with State Senator Peter Durant, coming back on nightside.
Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World Nightside Studios on WBZ News Radio.
All right, we're going to get everybody. I promise. Let me go to John and Sandwich, Massachusetts.
Join you.
Hey, Dan, thanks for taking my call. And Senator Durant, thank you for all you do for the sportsmen and women around the state.
Thank you.
I'm I'm the state field coordinator for the petition drive and I just real quickly just wanted to let you know we you know, we followed the process that was laid out in the mass State Constitution. We brought about just shy of eight hundred passionate volunteers and a complete grassroots effort to get this done together, all from the Berkshires to the Cape and the islands. And when it's all said and done. I fully expect to have you know, north of eighty thousand petitions that will be complete.
You know, we came.
Together, we worked our tails off, and as far as my understanding is, the House had a chance to add the preamble, Senate had a chance to add the preamble, and even the Governor herself had the opportunity to add the preamble at the time of signing and she did not. So the fact that she enacted it now at this stage of the game is just, in my opinion, unconsciousable.
But with that said, we will continue to collect right up until the deadline and continue to look at other options and avenues as well.
John, thank you very much for those comments. I got three other callers. I'm going to try to get them all in, but thank you. We've taking the time to call. Peter quick comment for John from the team.
Yeah, no, he's spot on. I remember we talked about it. It was talked about during the process whether or not the emergency preamplould be attached, and and he's right, they had an opportunity to do it before this, but did.
Thanks John, appreciate your call.
Thank you have a great night.
Let me keep rolling here. We're gonna get a little quicker on time here as we go along, I got Travis and Milton. Travis, go right ahead. You're next to a nice Iowa State Centative Peter Durant.
H thanks for having me.
I appreciate it.
Got me quick. Unfortunately, Travis, I never've been waiting a while, but we're title time.
That's all right, I'll be quick.
You know, I'm a gun owner in Massachusetts. I took the License to Carry class. You know, I own just a nine millimeter handgun, you know, very simply. I think one of the reasons I liked the gun laws of Massachusetts because I had to take a class. I had to be instructed in order to own a fire arm, and I think it's very basic. So you know, listen, I grew up in New Hampshire, where gun loans are a lot looser, and my family owned shotguns, grow up
duck hunting. You know, I just don't think it's that big of a deal to take a license to carry exam, which I did take in my handgun in order to get a shotgun.
So I'm curious.
You know, I understand the arguments either way, but I'm curious your thoughts and stay cenator's thoughts about like, why is that such a big hurdle?
Now?
Which is your lot? So, yeah, I'm Cravis. Thanks for the question, because it's a really good one. So the problem is is that not everyone can get an LTC. So, for example, if you I'm almost sixty years old, if I had a DUI in the past, maybe I had one when I was eighteen, I am forever ineligible to get an LTC. So if I have a semi automatic right now, if I have a semi automatic shotgun and I say, oh well, the new law comes in, I
better get my LTC, I can't. So I don't necessarily disagree with you that getting an LTC is a good thing. I think people should go get it. It's a good thing to have, but not everyone can get one.
All right. I appreciate your comment, Travis, and Senator Durance comment, I want to try to get at least one more in here before we have to part. Thanks Travis, appreciate it. Let me go to Darren and Saugus. Darren, if you're gonna be quick for me, I can also accommodate Jennifer and Webster.
Go ahead, Darren, absolutely, thank you Dan for having me on. I just want to say I'm an avid outdoorsman, hunter, fisherman. I live in Saugust, so you know I enjoyed doing a lot of the outdoors things in this state. One of the things I want to hit on is this makes hunting illegal for non residents under the year under
the age of eighteen years old. I think that that hunting licenses contribute to so much dollars going into conservation in this state that it's it's going to be missed, and then the tradition of hunting in the outdoors as well can be lost in that generation. It's really unfortunate. And the other thing that I want to hit on real quick is that you know, the legislation, like you pointed out, mister Senator, is very confusing and a lot of the police officers don't know how to enforce it.
There's nothing I spent a lot of time reading it, and there's nothing in there that talks about consequences being steeper for gun violence, which I think would be one of your biggest deterrences from gun crimes in the first place. Those two things probably confused me the most. I'd love to hear what you have to say as center.
Yeah, we you know, we all know that we have a law on the books in Massachusetts that says if you are in possession of a firearm without a license, it's a mandatory one year. Nobody gets prosecuted for that period. That's the first thing. Second thing about the juniors. You know, I had opportunity this summer to visit what's called the Junior Conservation Camp, which is where they teach high schoolers
and young adults that teach kids under eighteen. They teach them about the outdoors, they show them how to shoot, they teach them safety, They go boat hunting, they do canoeing, they do all these great things, and a lot of that is kurk tailed now because you can't execute, as you said, you can't possess a firearm, you can't have a youth shooting sport.
So we're flat out of time. You went a little longer, Darren, than we expected. Jennifer from websity, you needed to have called earlier. Thank you, Darren. Senator Durant, thank you. Please keep us posted and what's going on with this? Lauren. A pleasure to have you on the program as always.
Thank you.
Dan I appreciate it, and anybody wants to catch up with us, It's senator Durant dot com, so we'd love to have you.
Sounds great. Senator Durant d You are a n T Senator Peter Durant of Worcester County, Central Massachusetts, one of the four members of the Republican Party in the Massachusetts
State Senate. Hopefully they'll there'll be more sometime soon. We'll be back on night Side right after the ten o'clock news, and we talk with Reverend Kevin Peterson about an event this past Saturday which called for more reparations or called for reparations for slight I've wrote back on right after the ten o'clock news