A group created by sweeping gun control measures signed into law last July by Massachusetts Governer Maura Healey has convened to “investigate and study the status, feasibility, and utility of emerging firearm technologies, including, but not limited to, personalized firearm technology and microstamp technology.” The group includes politicians, law enforcement professionals, military backgrounds, a tech CEO, a professor, and the managing director of state affairs for the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF). Experience with firearms is varied within the group, from none at all to lifelong connections. The significance of the group’s findings is likely to make its way into the Massachusetts legislature and could impact the next round of Second Amendment infringements. 

While the provision establishing the Special Legislative Commission on Emerging Firearm Technology established a deadline of March 1, 2025, for the group to issue its report and its legislative recommendations, the committee only first met on January 28. Within the thirteen-person panel are six Massachusetts politicians, four of which are Democrats, and two of those, Representative Kate Lipper-Garabedian and Senator Michael Moore, were chosen to head the commission. You see where this is going already. 

While Moore claims the commission intends to research both the feasibility and the constitutionality of firearm safety and traceability technologies, historical behavior is a far more reliable barometer for the truth about Democrat regard for the Second Amendment rights of Americans and the current state gun rights in Massachusetts is a great example. In other words, these people wouldn’t pick up the Constitution if it fell on the floor. 

“Technology may be key to creating firearms that are safer for members the public and for those who lawfully own them… This commission will help us better understand the abilities and limitations of mature firearm safety technologies, and if they can be reasonably implemented in the Commonwealth in a way that does not infringe on Bay Staters’ constitutional rights to bear arms,” Moore said in a statement.

Does this mean that as soon as you can figure out a way to make microstamp technology a reality, you will roll back all the existing infringements on the gun rights of law-abiding citizens? I’m not holding my breath on that one. 

Aside from the first meeting, Lipper-Grabedian announced that the commission would meet once or twice more to discuss microstamping and personalized firearm technology. That second meeting took place on February 10 and featured presentations from the New Jersey attorney general and firearms enforcement offices, the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, and the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Gun Violence. If you didn’t see where this was going before, you do now. 

One presenter, Todd Lizotte, the president and CEO of BOLD Laser Automation and member of the commission, claimed to have “inadvertently developed” microstamping technology in 1993.

“Back about 1993, I inadvertently developed what you guys call microstamping. I had a marketing campaign. I wanted to emphasize a head stamp of a cartridge, and I wanted to put our logo on the primer. My marketing people put that together, I didn’t quite like it. It looked pretty good, but it looked fake. So it dawned on me, I could actually probably micromachine the tip of a firing pin on my Sig, a .40 cal, and I fired off some cartridges, took them, put them in a scanning electron microscope and used that head stamp in my marketing campaign,” Lizotte said.

The idea is for microscopic identifiers that can be traced back to the make, model, and serial number of a firearm to be transferred from the interior surface of the gun and imprinted on the ejected shell casing. Going back to my comments on how Democrats regard the Constitution, it’s important to highlight that California and New York both have long-standing requirements that any new model handgun sold in those states must be equipped with microstamping technology.

You heard that correctly. These Democrat-run states require a technology that has never existed or been developed for commercial use. Tell me you’re corrupt without telling me you’re corrupt. 

Republican Senator Peter Durant, a commission member I wish I could say wasn’t part of the group’s token minority, spoke about his experience growing up around firearms and his constituents, for whom guns are an everyday part of life and sport. 

“I, too, have been an avid sportsman since the age of 15 … you were able to get your FID permit, I think I got it at 15 and went to buy my first rifle, which I still own today … My district represents, as I say, 22 towns in Central Massachusetts; we have 22 towns and 30 sportsmen clubs. So we have more sportsmen clubs than towns. And so this is something that’s very near and dear to my heart. Obviously, we’re all very concerned about violence, gun violence in general, but I think we have to make sure that we keep in mind those legal gun owners,” Durant said in his January 28 meeting introduction. 

I wish I could say that Senator Durant was in a place to effect logic and reason amongst his peers, however, this is Massachusetts we’re talking about, and it is more likely that the direction of any decision made regarding the Second Amendment has been predetermined. 

NSSF managing director of state affairs, Jake McGuigan, was not opposed to the technologies but expressed concern for mandates, an apprehension not based in any reality that most of his committee peers can comprehend, as more mandates and restrictions are a staple for the left.

“We are the trade association for the firearms industry. We represent manufacturers, retailers, ranges across the country and here in the commonwealth … I oversee state-level lobbying across the country, have dealt with it from coast to coast on issues, microstamping, smart gun technology. And one thing I do want to point out, obviously, coming from the firearms industry, we are not opposed to these technologies. What we are opposed to is, obviously, mandates that would force mandates on our manufacturers and onto gun owners. But we have been a part of this debate for over a decade now.” 
In my opinion, it seems more likely than not that Massachusetts is considering joining California and New York in requiring a technology that does not yet exist for applicable purposes.