By Mike Sweeney, Gun Owners Action League of Massachusetts
The dust has finally settled and we’re taking a good look at the election results here at the Gun Owners’ Action League office. Our former Governor Mitt Romney lost in a somewhat surprising fashion as he was easily defeated by the incumbent, President Obama. It was surprising because many of the experts, pollsters, insiders and talking heads had Governor Romney winning, some by a landslide. As it turns out that was not meant to be, and we shall see what this means going forward. Based on President Obama’s first four years, and on things he spoke about during the debates, the Second Amendment rights community is going to have some work to do. As always we will work with the NRA and will let our membership know if, when and how to take action.
Our incumbent senator, Scott Brown was defeated by Elizabeth Warren in another hard fought battle. This one turned out to be very close, a significant voter turnout of 3 million people and the difference at the end turned out to be about 5%. Senator elect Warren has already been rated “F” by the NRA and has made numerous anti 2A statements, the good news though, if you can call it such, is that we didn’t lose much when it comes to Second Amendment Civil Rights. Senator Brown came out against the NRA’s National Reciprocity Act and also made noise about being for a renewed “Assault Weapons Ban.” Look for more on this race inside this issue.
Massachusetts gun owners will continue to have zero representation when it comes to our elected representatives to U.S. Congress. Every single member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts is rated F by the NRA, and not to be left behind, Senator Kerry and Senator elect-Warren also proudly brandish their anti-freedom scarlet letters. Amazing to think of the great men that have represented Massachusetts in Congress, freedom fighters, our framers, patriots and here we are with no representation when it comes to our personal freedom – what has happened to Massachusetts?
At the state level we had many incumbent who ran unopposed, there were some close battles, some blow outs and some brand new legislators elected.
We were glad to see old friends re-elected, among them were 55 GOAL Endorsed House Legislators! There are also 11 House Legislators with an “A” rating, 19 with a “B” rating and 2 newly elected who took the time to fill out one of our candidate questionnaires and scored 90% or higher. This gives us a total of 87 pro Second Amendment legislators out of a total of 160 House members. We’re looking forward to working with this House majority come January on many important reforms, most notably LTC issuance.
In the Senate there were no significant changes either way. There were some very strong pro Second Amendment candidates that fell short against well established incumbents, for the most part though; there was no shift in the balance of power. In all we are not as strong as we are in the house, but we are getting there. There are a total of 40 MA State Senators, 12 of which are GOAL Endorsed, 5 have an “A” rating and 4 with a “B” rating. This gives us 21 pro Second Amendment Senators, a thin slice over half.
Going into the 2012 Legislative Session there is much for us to do, we have a nice tight focus of bills to file (look for more on those in this issue) and some important issues to address with our legislators. As always we will count on GOAL members to step up, make the calls, write the letters and emails, and possibly make an appearance or two at the State House.
We can’t wait to get there, and to finally bring our membership some much needed relief from the current status quo.
