[This is a co-authored report from two of us who were there.]

Gun Owners Action League, our state rifle association, started the day
with a rally in the secluded courtyard behind the statehouse at 9:30.
It was looking sparse (about 40 people) until the speaker began,
whereupon about 120 more people followed the loudspeakers from
wherever they had been lost, and filled out the area something proud.

Mike Yacino of GOAL spoke.  One of his best throwaway lines was to
remind us that all of us holders of carry permits there had been
checked and certified clear of all crimes by the state; while the
people in the Statehouse behind us only had to be certified clean of
"election fraud" to hold their jobs.

Nancy Snow and Amos Hamburger were busy handing out ID buttons and
sheets describing all the bills to be presented at the hearings, and
telling people where to find their own representatives (and in too
many cases, who they were).

Mike warned us that the committee was going to suspend its rules and
discuss a bill that hadn't made it onto the official list.  It seems a
delegation of students from Simon's Rock of Bard College (alma mater
of Wayne Lo, who shot up the place with an SKS late last year) was
being bussed in to testify for a bill to ban all sales of firearms or
ammo to anyone who is not a state resident.

The hearings were originally scheduled in the (large) Gardner
Auditorium at 10:30, but that had been pre-empted by the Governor's
hearings on the Framingham Eight (women in prison for killing abusive
husbands, and seeking release).  So we had until 1:30 to buttonhole
our representatives, after which we would be squashed into an
inadequate hearing room.

One of my representatives' staffers was somewhat offensively smarmy.
He said, "Oh, it must be gun hearings day again!  The gun lobby is
always so organized every year."  I got a little pissed, and replied,
"I'm not from the gun lobby -- I'm from your district."

At 12:30, your second reporter arrived in time to notice a
demonstration going on in front of the statehouse (where the
pro-gunners weren't).  Randy Price from the TV News was there, in his
mirror reflective shades, talking to one of the anti-gun types, and
several Simon's Rock anti-gun "close-the-loophole" protestors.
(Earlier, Randy had covered the GOAL rally.)

The room we had been assigned seated about 50.  Remember, there were
about 160 gun owners there, plus another 20-30 students and teachers
from Bard.  One of us had already reserved a seat; the other never got
closer than the atrium outside -- and there was a crowd behind HIM.  A
cop took up station at the entrance and prevented the rest of the
crowd from coming in.  Soon after the debate started, a loudspeaker
was set up outside in the hall for the benefit of everyone else.

Everyone who was there (inside and outside) got to sign up on a sheet
saying what their position was on which bills.  Most of us signed up
to "support GOAL's position" on "all bills."

First, because of their time constraints, public officials got to
testify.  And first up was the bill that nobody had seen (the students
had some curfew, I guess).  

Currently, Massachusetts law allows a non-resident to purchase long
guns or ammo from a local dealer provided he complies with the laws of
his own state.  Previously, the law was similar, but applied only to
non-residents from states adjoining Massachusetts.  The Simon's Rock
folks called the current law a "loophole" and wanted it closed.

Two of their reps spoke about Wayne Lo and his "SKS assault rifle."
The second one, Hodgekiss, a co-sponsor, had done his homework so well
that he kept confusing Montana (Wayne Lo's home state) with Missouri,
and became belligerent when about five gun owners in the gallery
corrected him after his second muff.  Carr, from Gloucester, claimed
that the new bill would put the law back the way it was, but he was
lying: the new bill allows purchases by non-residents of adjoining
states ONLY if they have licensing in their own state "as strong as"
that in Massachusetts.  Since none of them do, that's that.

Some of the things these two said were really offensive.  "In some of
these other states, anyone can buy a gun as long as he's breathing!"
(Oooooo!)  "We have some very, very good gun laws in Massachusetts; if
only the other states would adopt the same type of laws, we wouldn't
be having this situation -- but they won't."  (Naughty, naughty!)

Next up was Boston city councilman Albert "Dapper" O'Neill.  He was
there to testify pro-gun, but in some ways he was a liability.  He's
reasonably elderly and tends to wander and repeat himself, plus he's
almost a caricature of a law-n-order politician.  He badmouthed the
ACLU, said violent criminals should be executed, and that if he were
judge, he'd give arrestees their "last rights" (pun intended) on the
spot (at which many of the gun owners applauded, which bothered me.)
He said that all the proposed gun restrictions were a step in the
right direction -- for the criminals.  He said this FOUR times :-(

Two of the bills under consideration would allow police to rescind a
CCW or FID, and confiscate all your guns, if someone had filed a
restraining order against you.  (Note that the filing of a restraining
order requires no warrant, no hearing, no evidence, and no conviction
-- just an accusation.)  Senator Barrett of Reading testified in favor
of it, and patronized the pro-gunners there several times by saying,
"I'm sure all the gun owners here will agree with me that we have to
get these weapons out of the hands of people that our courts have
convicted."  I haven't seen such a disgustingly disingenuous
performance since Nixon whined that he wasn't a crook.

Barrett also spoke in favor of the bill making the FID card renewable
every five years, instead of permanent as it is now.  The stated
purpose is to remove FID cards from those who have become ineligible.
"Revenue has nothing to do with it."  (Yeah, right.)  Apparently, some
congressmen think we're stupid enough to swallow the argument that
it's preferable to process 1.6 million renewals every cycle in the
vague hope of catching a recent felon than to simply take the goddamn
card away from a criminal at conviction time.  As usual, hassle the
law-abiding instead of the crook.

The two co-chairs of the committee were Rep. Caron and Sen. Jujuga.
Jujuga didn't say much (he was a co-sponsor of both "restraining
order" bills) but Caron struck me as a sharp guy that wouldn't let any
bad logic or lies on the part of either side to go unchallenged.  (He 
was a co-sponsor of one of the "restraining order" bills as well.)  One
of the younger reps on the committee (forgot his name) was
vociferously pro-gun, somewhat embarrassingly so.  His heart was in
the right place, but his arguments seemed to be confined to, "every
year it's the same damn thing, you come in here with this crap..."
It's nice to have a friend on the committee, but he could have been
more effective.

At about 3:00, it was clear that the hall-jam couldn't continue.
Someone came out of another meeting hall and yelled at the cop because
the loudspeaker was disturbing their meeting, so the loudspeaker was
disconnected.  So they found a bigger hall upstairs.  One of us had
to leave to catch his charter bus, and so missed the "public"
testimony; the other got a seat this time.

Caron began by talking about how he got his FID 16 years ago, left the
state, and then returned without notifying them of his address change.
He complained that the state record system was not up-to-date and that
his PD back in his city of birth still thought he lived there.  Great
quote: "If you purchase a gun today, it will not get into the state
computer system until 1999."  (This was also an argument he used
against the renewable FID card.)

Testimony was heard from several "battered women," one of whom had
been attacked by some guy in his 20's who had an FID card because he
got it when he was 15 or thereabouts.  They used a lot of emotion and
said how they were scared of these men.  A staffer of Attorney General
Harshbarger testified in favor of this anti-gun bill, saying how
50,000 restraining orders were granted last year, and how these women
needed to be protected.  Caron noted that a restraining order was
granted for 10 days, and then a hearing was held to determine whether
the order would be extended to a year.  He asked whether she would be
satisfied if the FID were revoked at the time of this hearing rather
than after the initial issuance of the FID.  She gave some long
rambling circumlocution in response.

Then testimony against the bill was heard.  Mike Yacino (who looks
something like Einstein) got up and made the point that restraining
orders were issued on too little evidence, that judges like to issue
restraining orders just to let things cool off no matter who they
think is right (man or woman), and that the hearings for restraining
orders are lightning sessions with little time to consider facts.
Atty. Karen McNutt spoke with him a few times during his testimony.

Other pro-gunners got up to testify.  One said he had had to file a
restraining order against a tenant to clear her out, and that she
countered by filing one against him!  He noted that this would have
allowed the state to confiscate his guns if the new bill became law.
One of the junior reps noted that "this is America" and we have to be
certain that individual rights are respected.  Senator Jujuga
reiterated this, saying that "people who abuse smaller people can go
to Hell as far as I care, but we have to be careful about equating
conviction with a restraining order."  (Point and match, Senator.)

Another pro-gunner got up and testified that he didn't know his
citizenship "expired every 5 years," and that a driver's license was a
privilege, not a right like the right to keep and bear arms.

A third got up and said the problem was with the criminal justice
system, and argued in favor of a death penalty bill and public
hangings.  Senator Jujuga said he had himself tried to get a death
penalty bill passed, and joking responded that he, too, favored public
hangings.  The speaker then responded, "I'll make you a deal.  You get
me the rope, and I'll tie the noose."

Next came public testimony on the Simon's Rock bill.  A teacher
testified that she had been the teacher of Wayne Lo, and that "he
wouldn't have been able to shoot people inside a building while he was
outside" without his evil gun.  She said that the "loophole" should be
closed to prevent something like this from "ever happening again".

Four or five other kids testified in favor of this bill, one of
spilling tears for the good legislators.  One of the students actually
shot by Wayne Lo was also there.  Many of them had T shirts on,
saying, "As long as one person can buy a gun in anger, none of us are
safe -- support gun control."  The committee was reluctant to grill or
correct the kids, except for Caron, who corrected one student who had
claimed that anyone could apply for an FID.  "Only residents can get
FID's," he said.  (How much do you want to bet that this kid had no
idea he had been conned into testifying for a bill that would cut
out-of-staters completely off?)

Yacino and McNutt spoke again, this time noting that the bill as
written would affect both ammo AND ALL guns possessed by
out-of-staters.  Karen also noted that hunters in CT, NH, and VT could
be put away for a year if they wandered across the MA boundary
somewhere in the woods and got challenged by game wardens.  Yacino
underscored the fact that Lo COULD have gotten an FID as a resident
student -- and, hell, even an CCW, as he had NO criminal or mental
record.

One junior rep was upset that it would take MA residents longer to buy
a gun than out-of-staters, and thought it was "elitist".  Another
(Caron?) said that we need the protection of preventing non-residents
from buying without an FID because only two other states in the union
had "FID-type" cards, so complying with all the laws of one's home
state was "not enough."  One pro-gun speaker replied that this
resembled a mother watching her son in a marching band and exclaiming,
"Everyone's out of step but Johnny!"

All the Bard College people were filing out as the pro-gun testimony
for this bill was made, and thus only pro-gunners were around when the
other bills came under consideration.  The main bills remaining (and
GOAL's position) were:

o  H.4375 and four others: Notify police chiefs so they can pull 
   licenses when a holder is convicted (strongly supported)

o  H.1732: Require trigger locks on all handguns sold (opposed)

o  H.962: Require trigger locks on all loaded firearms (strongly
   opposed)

o  H.1350: Allow every municipality to enact their own gun laws 
   (opposed)

o  H.1731: Fund bullet-proof vests for municipal police (supported)

o  S.1097: State Constitutional Amendment for the RKBA (supported)

o  Several on police discretion in the issuance of FID cards (opposed)

o  Several altering non-resident license conditions (supported)

o  H.1135: Ban damn near all guns everywhere in the state (guess!)

Some of these took only 30 seconds to consider, as the remaining
pro-gunners raised hands in unison either for or against them.

Mike Yacino noted that, besides the danger in screwing with a trigger
lock on a loaded gun, that bill would make it illegal for a licensee
to carry his concealed handgun unless it were locked.

Caron blew right through H.1350 when he saw that we opposed it.
Again, he brought up the state's archaic records capability and said,
"This would create hundreds of different licensing systems."

The session ran late -- since it was the last scheduled hearing, it
could not be adjourned until everyone who wanted to had testified.  It
ended at about 6:30.
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