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A special shoutout to Boston Common squirrel tour guides, “Charles River Matcha” fake campaign announcements that never get old and every other joke social media post we almost shared yesterday before remembering it was April 1.
Now, back to the actual news:
Up in arms: New rules for Massachusetts gun owners take effect today. Under the 2024 gun safety law signed by Gov. Maura Healey, residents applying or renewing a gun permit will be required to take a revised basic firearms safety course. However, advocates for gun owners are extra-miffed about how the rules are being rolled out.
- The backstory: Up until yesterday, Massachusetts had 29 different basic firearm safety courses that residents could take. But the new law — passed after a 2022 Supreme Court ruling expanded the right to bear arms — mandated that the state update that list. The new courses are required to include material on disengagement tactics, suicide prevention and safe storage, as well as new live-fire training. The State Police released the list yesterday afternoon, just hours before the new rules took effect.
- What’s the issue? Jon Green, the director of education and training for the Gun Owners Action League, said the last-minute release left instructors, clubs and residents trying to schedule classes in a state of limbo. Green blamed the Legislature for giving the State Police a new task with no funding. “This should have been done months and months ago, and that’s a real failure of the state,” he told WBUR’s Kevin Vu in an interview. “Why would an instructor order, you know, a thousand dollars worth of materials only to find out that, oh, that course didn’t make the approved course curriculum roster by the State Police.” (Healey’s office and the State Police did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday.)
- Who’s affected? The new training courses are required for any Bay Stater applying for a new gun permit, as well as people who got their current permit after Aug. 1, 2024 before their next renewal. That affects tens of thousands of Bay Staters, according to U.S. LawShield, a legal defense company aimed at gun owners. Green said the state also has several thousand instructors.
- What’s next: The next part of the law takes effect on Oct. 2. That’s when nearly all privately owned guns will be required to be registered with the state via a single online portal. New residents will have to register their guns within 60 days.
- Meanwhile: Gun rights activists are trying to repeal the entire 2024 gun law through a ballot referendum this fall.
By the numbers: ICE has arrested more than 7,000 people in Massachusetts since President Trump took office, according to newly unearthed data. As WBUR’s Simón Rios reports, that’s a nearly fivefold increase compared to a similar period at the end of former President Biden’s term. And despite claims by Trump that they’re targeting the “worst of the worst,” 46% of those detained had no pending criminal charges or convictions; they were marked only for being in the country without legal status.
- Meanwhile in Maine: The numbers released by the Deportation Data Project found that only 6% of people arrested by ICE during the agency’s late-January surge in Maine had criminal convictions. Another 14% had pending criminal charges, but the other 80% had neither criminal charges nor convictions.
In related news: A federal judge in Boston ruled Tuesday that the Trump administration violated the law when it abruptly revoked the legal status of nearly 900,000 migrants who came to the U.S. through the CBP One app.
- The ruling reinstates those migrants’ legal status, giving them at least temporary protection from deportation while we wait to see if the Trump administration (which blasted the decision as “blatant judicial activism”) appeals.
In court: Former Patriots wide receiver Stefon Diggs’ trial on assault charges is set to begin May 4 in Dedham. Diggs — who has pleaded not guilty to the charges and was cut by the Patriots last month — was in court for a pretrial hearing yesterday. He is facing numerous charges, including felony strangulation, for allegedly assaulting his personal chef in December during an argument over money he owed her.
Off your marks: Conner Mantz, the top American finisher in last year’s Boston Marathon, is dropping out of this year’s race. Mantz announced yesterday that his recovery hasn’t progressed enough since an injury last fall. Mantz finished fourth in Boston last year and set a new American marathon record in Chicago last fall.
P.S.— The Rose Kennedy Greenway food trucks are back. Downtown Boston’s favorite lunchtime treats kicked off the 2026 season yesterday, with seven new vendors (and 21 total trucks) spread out across five weekdays. Check out the schedule here.
