Let’s start with a technical note: Question 9 is what’s called a ballot referendum. So while every other question on the ballot is proposing a new law, this one asks voters if they want to keep an existing one. A “Yes” vote keeps the law on the books, and a “No” vote takes it off the books.

The law we’re talking about is a 2024 measure regulating guns in Massachusetts called Chapter 135.

It requires all guns to have serial numbers, which means that the weapons people sometimes call ghost guns — which are 3D-printed or ordered from manufacturers in individual parts, then finished and assembled — must be registered.

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Additionally, Chapter 135 bans modifications that turn semi-automatic weapons, which require the user to pull the trigger for each shot, into automatic weapons, which can fire multiple rounds with a single pull of the trigger.

It also expanded what’s known as the “red flag law” in Massachusetts. Now, more groups like health care providers and school officials can report if someone is an extreme safety risk to themselves or others, and a judge can decide to temporarily remove that person’s guns. Only a couple dozen of these petitions, at most, are filed each year.

Research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows Massachusetts had the country’s second-lowest firearm death rate in 2024, the year this law was passed: 3.8 firearm deaths per 100,000 residents. Hawaii’s rate was 3.7 firearm deaths per 100,000 residents. The CDC has not yet released last year’s data.

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What do supporters say?

Supporters say gun regulations keep people safer and help keep weapons out of the hands of people who won’t use them responsibly.

“We don’t throw out regulations because some people don’t follow them,” Yes on 9 Chair Ruth Zakarin said. “Some people run red lights. That doesn’t mean we should get rid of any red lights whatsoever.”

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What do opponents say?

Opponents say the U.S. Constitution gives people a right to bear arms, and the state should not overreach to limit those rights.

“The most basic part of the question is, does the legislature have the privilege to erode or change or hamstring our constitutionally enumerated rights? And I don’t believe they do. And I think the way it was done was horribly done by kind of ramming it through,” Toby Leary of Cape Gun Works told GBH’s Boston Public Radio. “I think that constitutional rights are worth defending, and I believe that they should be looked at through the strictest lens of scrutiny. … If we can’t treat any other enumerated right this way, then why can we treat the Second Amendment right this way?”

Who is paying for this?

Yes for A Safe Massachusetts has spent $366,000 on the “Yes” side of this question. It has received $500,000 from the Massachusetts Teachers Association.

The Civil Rights Coalition has spent $436,000 dating back to 2024 on the “No” side.” The gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson gave it $50,000, and the Gun Owners Action League provided nearly $23,000 more.

Bottom line:

A “Yes” vote would keep the state’s 2024 gun law on the books. A “No” vote would get rid of it.

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