GOP hopeful for AG touts gun owners' rights
Republican Jay McMahon is running for state attorney general, vowing to protect First and Second Amendment rights against government encroachment. He spoke with Boston Herald Radio host Joe Battenfeld yesterday:
Q: Why are you running for attorney general?
A: I’ve got a lot of experience. I’ve been a lawyer for 30 years. I’ve got experience in all the courts of the commonwealth. Federal courts. Every level. I’ve been in the court of appeals. I’ve been in the SJC . ... I’ve also been before all kinds of boards: federal boards, state boards, municipal boards. So I’ve got a well-rounded experience in jurisprudence in Massachusetts. Now you ask why I wanted to run.
I’m running for attorney general because we can do so much better in the commonwealth. I see what the present attorney general is doing with respect to the opiate crisis, with respect to public safety, and, just, I believe her priorities are misguided, and we could just do a whole lot better.
Q: Would you oppose the ban on bump stocks pending in the Legislature?
A: As soon as they start infringing on the Second Amendment rights of a citizen to keep and bear arms, I will be there to oppose that. Before the hys- teria over Las Vegas, and by the way, that was a tragic event by someone who is obviously deranged. Somehow, he got a hold of a lot of weapons . ... He could get the bump stock over the internet.
You don’t even need a license to get one of those . ... I would not support any sort of a ban on handguns, on rifles, and certainly on these accessories, because that’s all it is, is an accessory.
It doesn’t do anything more for the bullet. The bullet is still going to get fired if its one pull, three pulls, a bullet is going to leave through the barrel.
Q: What experience in law enforcement do you have?
A: Right out of high school, when I was 17, I ended up interning with the Barnstable County Sheriff’s Office down on Cape Cod. That was in 1971 ... in Barnstable County, there’s 15 towns and the sheriff’s office has what they call the criminal investigation bureau. They do fingerprinting. They do photography. They are the crime scene search for all of Cape Cod . ... Then in 1974 I was a police officer with the town of Barnstable. In the mix of all that I was also in the Army National Guard . ... I was a second lieutenant in the military police and that was during the ’70s. I wound up serving and we ended up getting activated for the school busing riots that were in Boston at the time . ... We were assembled, but they did not call us out into the streets.