A handful of states have decided some guns are just too dangerous for you to own. For example, California has a list of approved handguns you can buy, and since a lot of them aren't even made anymore and no one is trying to actually get on the list, well...you can guess how that's going. Up until recently, Massachusetts was the same way.
Then the state expanded the list and whoa boy, things will get sporty if you move there.
See, Massachusetts expanded its list so that now there's a roster of the only guns you can buy. That sucks, of course, but people who move a lot have dealt with that before.
Except the Gun Owners Action League (GOAL) realized recently that there's a slight issue with the way the law was written. You can move to Massachusetts with whatever guns you have, mostly, but don't even think about doing anything else with them:
A single word in law makes an enormous difference, as our members are all too familiar. Gun owners in this State have been dealing with a, so-called, Approved Firearms Roster for nearly twenty-five years. In the past, this roster only dealt with handguns. With the passage of Chapter 135 that roster now potentially lists only the firearms can use. The roster only placed restrictions on what a retailer could sell/transfer, not what a licensed individual could possess or use. Under the new language that establishes the Firearm Control Advisory Board, that has now changed.
Now under Chapter 140, Section 131 ¾, the term “use” appears:
The secretary of public safety and security shall, with the advice of the firearm control advisory board established in section 131½ compile and publish a roster of assault-style firearms banned under section 131M and a roster of firearms approved for sale and use in the commonwealth using the parameters set forth in section 123.
GOAL has spoken with attorneys, law enforcement, and just about anyone else it can think to talk to about this and no one can seem to offer any other understanding of what "use" here means other than, well, to prohibit the use of any firearm that's not on the roster.
The thing is, we're a mobile country. People move all over the nation from all over the nation. Companies relocate employees, people decide to move closer to family, or they just don't like the weather where they're at. There are a ton of reasons someone might move to Massachusetts.
The problem is that most states don't have a roster. Those that do probably don't have the same roster, which means a gun that's perfectly legal to own in one place is suddenly a problem if you move to Massachusetts.
Now, GOAL notes that possession doesn't seem to be a problem, which I guess is better than nothing, but then again, how are we going to define "use" anyway? I have guns that I may use at the range, but I also use them by keeping them close at hand if someone decides they want to harm me or mine. It's being used even when not being fired, arguably.
Granted, I'd hope that it wouldn't come down to something like this, but I also would hope that it wouldn't come down to some guns being forbidden just because they're not on an approved list somewhere.
