• H.2400 Youth Hunting Bill Alert. Please call your legislator and ask them to sign onto Rep Gobi's letter!  The deadline is today at 5:00 pm! 
• Trapping Legislation Released. On Monday, March 14, 2011 the Joint Committee on the Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture held a public hearing on bills related to trapping and dam safety.  
• CT; Bill Banning Large-Capacity Ammo Magazines Draws Heat At Hearing. "This bill is nothing more than a knee-jerk reaction to a terrible incident in Tucson, Ariz.''   
• MA Division of Fisheries & Wildlife has some great programs for the ladies, check the schedule here! 
• Check out the all new MassGunLawReform.com! This is our site dedicated to our Civil Rights and Public Safety Bill which was filed this week
• President Obama: We must seek agreement on gun reforms.Is this the start of the White House campaigning for more anti civil rights legislation?  (see NRA response in its entirety below) 
• Safer Streets 2011: There's No Such Thing as Common Sense Reform of Gun Laws."Gun control has never worked for safer streets; it short-circuits safe streets by creating a void in a community's ability to meet and manage violence in the absence of police."
• Permitless Carry Bill Moves to the New Hampshire Senate.HB 330 would permit any person who can legally carry a firearm to possess a firearm openly or concealed without obtaining a license to carry a concealed firearm in New Hampshire.
• Guns Restricted In Massachusetts Still Find Their Way In.GOAL Executive Director Jim Wallace on WBUR sets record straight
• MA Special Election, Primary is April 12th! 10th Middlesex and 6th Worcester Representative Seats up for election  
• NRA endorses Tester's bill aimed at allowing antique gun re-importation, sales Senator's legislation would allow American-made firearms abroad to be re-sold to U.S. collectors  

• Read more Local stories on goalnews.org-local here  
• Read more National stories on goalnews.org-national here    

State Representative Antonio Cabral of New Bedford has filed a bill to potentially ban manual action guns. The bill, H.639 An Act Relative to the Licensing of Certain Automatic Weapons has a rather deceiving title. At first glance, most people would think the bill has something to do with machineguns. Sadly it is just the opposite.  

The first section of the bill repeals two important exemptions in the term "Assault Weapon" defined in Chapter 140, Section 121, they are:  

(i) any of the weapons, or replicas or duplicates of such weapons, specified in appendix A to 18 U.S.C. section 922 as appearing in such appendix on September 13, 1994, as such weapons were manufactured on October 1, 1993;  

(ii) any weapon that is operated by manual bolt, pump, lever or slide action;

The appendix in (i) is a very long list of guns that can never be considered "assault weapons". This list of exempt guns only appeared in the federal definition and would have been lost when the federal assault weapons ban sunset in 2004. That year GOAL was successful in passing our reform bill, Chapter 150 of the Acts of 2004. http://www.malegislature.gov/Laws/Se...004/Chapter150 In sections 2 and 3 of that bill we permanently attached the federal exempted list to the Massachusetts law.

As an example, that list contains hundreds of guns including 1860 Henry Rifle, Navy Arms Henry Trapper, Browning A-Bolt Rifle, Anschutz 1700D Classic, Remington 700 BDL Bolt-Action Rifle, Ruger M77RL Ultra Light, Thompson/Center Contender, Ruger 10/22 Autoloading Carbine, Mossberg Model 500 and many more. A full list can be found at: http://www.recguns.com/Whatizit/appendixA.html 

We need to raise the funds to continue to promote our reform bill and continue to fight for the rights of Massachusetts gun owners.

This Annual Raffle is our primary fund raising event for the year and is vitally necessary to our continued success.

Tickets are $5.00 each, and you may purchase tickets online, at GOAL headquarters, or by calling the GOAL office at (508) 393-5333.  

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