And it's literally the People's Republic of MA now; the law is

what Comrade AG says it is.
“This isn’t a panacea,” Roy-Gonzalez said. “This isn’t going to solve the issue of gun violence. There’s a lot more that needs to be done. There’s been a law on the books since 1998. It’s up to us to enforce the law. The point is these guns are illegal and 10,000 of them were sold last year alone.
And the most basic question: if they're illegal, why did you allow them to be sold?  Or, for that matter, brought into the state at all?
Answer: because they were legal under MA law, and you decided you didn't like it, and changed the law.  Because you're a nasty little tyrant at heart.

When a bureaucrat or politician can change what the law means, at will, NOBODY is safe in anything.

As for this being about public safety,
Cyndi Roy-Gonzalez, spokeswoman for Healey, said the office did not consider how many shootings in Massachusetts have been carried out with assault-style rifles, but insisted the ban is an effective anti-violence measure.

According to FBI statistics, rifles of any variety were used in just two of the Bay State’s 779 murders in the past five years, which were mainly carried out with handguns. In that same period, hands and feet were cited as the murder weapon 35 times.
Two.  That's their excuse for playing Stalin games.  Revealing the always-there real reason: it's about control.  Not crime, not safety, control.