Massachusetts Town Votes to Allow Guns in Town Hall

Massachusetts is a very anti-gun place and has been for ages. For a state that sparked off a war over government troops trying to enforce gun control, they sure did forget their roots something fierce.

But, as I often have to remind myself, no state is a monolith. 

In even the most anti-gun states, there are pro-gun regions. Recently, I talked about that in Massachusetts.

And one of the towns mentioned in that piece just did something kind of surprising, even in a pro-gun region of an anti-gun state. They voted to allow guns in their town hall.

At the annual town meeting on Saturday, local voters pushed back against a state gun law that would have prohibited anyone from carrying a firearm into Town Hall or onto town property.

Police Chief Bruce Cullett suggested to the Select Board that the town opt out of the provision of a new gun law that would bar people from carrying firearms “loaded or unloaded” in municipal buildings or on municipally owned property. The Select Board supported passage of the article.

Cullett said he saw no reason to change the town’s current policy.

…

Cullett pointed out that license-to-carry and hunter safety education classes often take place in town halls. He’s taught them in Hinsdale and Cummington, but not in Peru.

“If firearms aren’t allowed to be brought into those buildings, those classes would need to be held elsewhere,” he said. “That’s one of the things that a lot of folks haven’t really thought about.”

That’s actually a fair point. Those are classes that are required for actually using a gun in certain contexts, and while not all hunter safety courses require someone to physically have a gun with them for the class–mine **mumblety* something years ago didn’t, for example–Massachusetts might well be different. I’m pretty sure license to carry courses require gun handling, though.

And town hall is a central point anyone can access and find in order to take the class.

The vote was 37-7 in favor of opting out. It was taken via secret ballot, which I get, and it was overwhelmingly in support of allowing guns in town hall.

Fascinating.

Yet also not overly shocking.

In a rural community, things like hunting are going to be far more common. That alone means people are likely to be at least a little more pro-gun than in the more urban centers, particularly in Massachusetts. Couple that with the tendency to also be more self-sufficient, which means carrying a gun rather than calling on the police and praying they’ll get there in time, you’re going to see less bias against guns and gun ownership.

That’s true even in a city like Peru that voted for Kamala Harris in 2024.

And my take is that we actually need to foster this sort of thing. We need to encourage it and amplify these voices. We need to urge them to speak out in their home states, particularly on gun rights issues, and be heard by the very people they vote for, yet who later curtail their right to keep and bear arms.

We also need to reach out to them and point out how each infringement takes them one step further down that dark path, that they will never stop curtailing rights, convinced that as long as someone can own a gun of some type, they’ve not done anything wrong.

That can’t be permitted, but we need these folks to speak out and fight back in the most anti-gun of states for that reason alone.