In 1998, Massachusetts passed the state’s Gun Control Act, and it was lauded by leftists at the time as the toughest gun-control legislation in the country, which indeed it was. This law “banned semiautomatic assault weapons, imposed strict new licensing rules, prohibited anyone convicted of a violent crime or drug trafficking from ever carrying or owning a gun, and enacted severe penalties for storing guns unlocked,” the Boston Globe reported. Predictably, a study conducted years later showed that the law didn’t have the desired impact of lowering firearms-related violence. Instead, crime actually increased by as much as 20%.

Fast forward to Tuesday of this week, when Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, a Democrat, announced that she had made changes to the 1998 Gun Control Act, specifically in how the term “assault” weapon would now be defined and applied. She stated that the law currently bans “specific weapons like the Colt AR-15 and AK-47 and explicitly bans ‘copies or duplicates’ of those weapons.” Healey declared the problem was that “gun manufacturers have taken it upon themselves to define what a ‘copy’ or ‘duplicate’ weapon is.” In other words, she’s assuming that these firearm manufacturers were abiding only by the “letter” of the law, but not the “spirit” of it, and therefore she has taken it upon herself to define terms.

What followed was Healey’s redefinition of “assault” weapon, which is so convoluted and nonsensical that one is left wonder exactly what type of firearm isn’t banned. And, honestly, that’s the point, as liberals like Maura Healey would love to ban guns entirely. If it weren’t for that pesky Second Amendment, they believe, they’d have been done with this “problem” years ago. Evidently, Healey doesn’t appear to believe in the proper balance of powers within the government either, as she has unilaterally changed. No legislative process, no governor’s request, no consulting of the constituents of Massachusetts, just her own anti-constitutional leftist belief system.