The sweeping gun control bill that was adopted by Massachusetts lawmakers earlier this month is set to take effect this Friday, but firearm instructors say they've received no guidance whatsoever from the state about the new training requirements that are a part of the new law. 

According to the Gun Owners Action League's summary of H. 4885, the colonel of the state police, in consultation with the municipal police training committee, is tasked with creating a whole new training curriculum that must include sections on injury prevention, suicide prevention, and disengagement tactics, along with a live-fire and written test. On today's Bearing Arms' Cam & Co, firearms instructor Charlie Cook (also the star of Riding Shotgun with Charlie) revealed that there's been no outreach from the state police about the mandated changes. 

In fact, Cook says he and other firearms instructors aren't even sure if the new mandates will kick in on August 1st. 

They dropped this bill on July 17th. Maura Healey signed it on July 25th. Everything talks about having an August 1st date, but some people have said 'no, it ends on August 1st and the new rules start on August 2nd'. I've also heard some people say that it doesn't take effect until 90 days after the bill was signed. So now we're like is it 90 days after August 1st, 90 days after July 25th? 

Or is it August 1st (or 2nd)? No one seems to know. Cook says that even local police departments, which serve as the de facto licensing authorities in the state, are confused about when the new mandates kick in. 

I did call my town police and told them I'm an instructor that has some folks interested in taking my class, so what do I do? And he said, 'everything looks the same on our end.' So I'm going to keep teaching the NRA home firearms safety course and I'm going to keep giving them certificates... but I've heard a couple of people tell me that they've set up appointments and their chiefs have said 'yeah, we're not doing anything about this until it all gets hammered out.' 

Cook would like to see firearms instructors initiate a class-action lawsuit over the confusion, which is undoubtedly going to lead to some would-be gun owners having to wait weeks or months before their local licensing authority starts accepting license-to-carry applications. And since an LTC is required in order to lawfully possess a handgun, these delays are going to block at least some would-be gun owners from exercising their Second Amendment rights. 

Cook says there's also a lot of confusion over the guns that will be banned for sale when the law kicks takes effect. The Gun Owners Action League says the new law is written in a way that bans the sale of all semi-automatic firearms going forward, but Cook says the legislation was written in such confusing language that it appears to prohibit the sale of virtually all long guns, whether they're semi-automatic or not. 

The buying frenzy has been completely nuts. I had a Utah class this past weekend at Cape Gunworks and the checkout line was snaked all the way through the building. There were probably 40 people waiting to buy things. 

In Massachusetts a "firearm" is a handgun. They don't call it a handgun, but a firearm. And of course, you know this, they've changed the definition of a firearm to include rifles and shotguns. We have an "Approved Firearm Roster" which are guns that you can get from a dealer. Guess what's not on the roster? Rifles and shotguns. So you might not be able to purchase rifles or shotguns until this all gets hammered out. When I was teaching the Utah class on Sunday and somebody went and bought a .44 Magnum lever-action rifle because he doesn't know if he'll be able to buy it next week. 

The Massachusetts legislature spent about a year coming up with the language of H. 4885, so they had plenty of time to write the bill in such a way that it was at least easy for gun owners, retailers, and law enforcement to understand. Instead, the only thing that's clear about H. 4885 is that it's going to result in a massive infringement on our Second Amendment rights once it takes effect... whenever that may be. 

Check out the entire conversation with Charlie Cook in the video window below, and stay tuned for more developments. We could see the first lawsuits filed against H. 4885 this week, and given the chaos that the new law is causing even before it officially takes effect, there's a good chance we'll soon see some injunctive relief granted to those impacted by the unfunded and unwritten mandates.