Massachusetts
Permanent URL for this collectionhttps://dspace.firearmsresearchcenter.org/id/frc0001/4129
Massachusetts
This jurisdictional hub aggregates FRC holdings related to Massachusetts. It supports research on the state’s firearms history, technology, law, policy, and culture from the colonial and provincial periods through statehood to the present.
- Legal sources: statutes and session laws, administrative code, attorney general opinions, appellate decisions, and select municipal ordinances.
- Historical materials: newspapers, photographs, maps, catalogs, armory and manufacturing records (e.g., Springfield Armory and industrial corridor), militia and maritime archives, and oral histories tied to Massachusetts people and places.
- Research outputs: technical reports, academic studies, training manuals, and curated datasets relevant to the state.
Cite the Firearms Research Center and the item’s handle/DOI when using materials. Rights and licensing vary by item.
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Item type:Item, The Compact with the Charter and Laws of the Colony of New Plymouth 1, 8-12 (William Brigham ed., 1836)(1620)Authorized the colony's council to appoint officials, enact laws consistent with English law, impose martial law during emergencies, recruit settlers, transport supplies duty-free, and use military force to defend the colony and exclude unauthorized inhabitants.Item type:Item, 2 Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England 99 (Nathaniel B. Shurtleff ed., 1853)(1645)Mandated that "all youth within this jurisdiction, from ten yeares ould to the age of sixsteen yeares, shalbe instructed, by some one of the officers of the band, or some other experienced souldier…upon the usuall training dayes, in the exercise of armes, as small guns, halfe pikes, bowes & arrows."Item type:Item, 1 Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England 190 (Nathaniel B. Shurtleff ed., 1853)(1637)Required everyone 18 and older to "come to the publike assemblies with their muskets, or other peeces fit for servise, furnished with match, powder, & bullets."Item type:Item, 1 Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay 392 (1853)(1620)"For such of or nation as sell munition, gunns, or other furniture, to arme the Indians against vs, or teach them the vse of armes, wee would haue yow to apphend them and send them prisons for England, where they will not escape severe punishmt, being expressly against the proclamacon."Item type:Item, The Compact with the Charter and Laws of the Colony of New Plymouth 285-86 (William Brigham ed., 1836)(1671)"And every man from the age of sixteen years and upward, shall also be provided with such Arms and Amunition as the Court have determined, upon penalty expressed in our said Book of Records."Item type:Item, The Compact with the Charter and Laws of the Colony of New Plymouth 184 (William Brigham ed., 1836)(1677)"It is enacted by the Court That the order of Court made Anno 1644 allowing Matchcockes be repealed ; and that all psons required by the lawes of this Collonie to keep and maintaine armes ; be att all times provided with sufficient fix feir lockes or snaphance musketts or other servicable peeces not exceeding four foot and an halfe longe ; nor under Colliver bore"Item type:Item, Charters and General Laws of the Colony and Province of Massachusetts Bay 132-133 (1814)(1633)Ch. 58, § 2 (1633): Prohibited the possession, trade, sale, and repair of guns, ammunition, armor, and weapons generally for "any Indian" enforced by fine.Item type:Item, 1 Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay 190 (1853)(1636)Ordered that no person shall travel to Plymouth without some arms.Item type:Item, Records Of The Colony Of New Plymouth In New England 230 (Daniel Pulsifier ed., 1861)(1671)Laws of Plymouth Colony (1671). Whereas several persons have been greatly endangered by setting of guns, it is enacted by the Court and the authority thereof that none shall sett any guns except in enclosures and that the gun be sufficiently enclosed so as it be secure from hurting man or beast and that he that setteth the gun do give warning or notice thereof to all the neighbors on penalty of paying a fine of five pounds to the use of the Colony for every default.Item type:Item, The Compact with the Charter and Laws of the Colony of New Plymouth 102 (William Brigham ed., 1836)(1657)Required the militia of every township to bring arms during Sunday church services. Violators fined twelve pence for every default.Item type:Item, Records of The Colony of New Plymouth in New England 173 (1856)(1676)Prohibited the selling, bartering, and giving of arms or ammunition to "any Indian," punishable by death.Item type:Item, Records Of The Colony Of New Plymouth In New England 66 (Daniel Pulsifier ed., 1861)(1656)Laws of Plymouth Colony (1656). And likewise that no Indian shall discharge any gun on the Lords day at any thing to the breach of the Sabbath and disturbance of the English; as they will answer it at their peril.Item type:Item, The Colonial Laws of Massachusetts 186 (Rockwell & Churchill 1889) (Passed 1645).(1645)Powder, § 2, MASS ACTS: That no Person (except for the defence of themselves and their vessels at Sea) shall transport any§Gunpowder§out of this jurisdiction, without License first obteined, from some two of the Magistrates, upon penalty of forfeiting all such powder as shall be transporting or transported, or the value thereof;"Item type:Item, The Compact with the Charter and Laws of the Colony of New Plymouth 115 (William Brigham ed., 1836)(1658)Required that one quarter of each militia to be armed during Sunday church services. Each militia member required to have a firearm, sword, three charges of powder and bullets. Violators fined two shillies and six pence for each day's neglect.Item type:Item, The Compact with the Charter and Laws of the Colony of New Plymouth 176 (William Brigham ed., 1836)(1675)Required every one to bring arms to Sunday church services, furnishing six chargers of powder and shott. Penalty of two shillings for violations.Item type:Item, The Charters And General Laws Of The Colony And Province Of Massachusetts Bay 190 (1814)(1663)Colony Laws. § 4: Be it also enacted by the authority of this court, that no masters of ships, or seamen, having their vessels riding within any of our harbors in this jurisdiction, shall presume to drink healths, or suffer any healths to be drunk within their vessels by day or night, or to shoot off any gun after the daylight is past, or on the sabbath day, on penalty for every health twenty shillings, and for every gun so shot twenty shillings.Item type:Item, 1647: Laws and Liberties of Massachusetts, reprinted in The Laws and Liberties of Massachusetts 28 (Harvard Univ. Press 1929)(1647)Prohibited the repairing, selling, and giving of "any Indian" a gun, ammunition, or armour, punishable by fine.Item type:Item, Records Of The Colony Of New Plymouth 177 (1856)(1675)that whoever shall shoot of any gun on any necessary occasion, or at any game whatsoever, except at an Indian or a wolf, shall forfeit five shillings for every such shot, till further liberty shall be given.Item type:Item, 2 Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay 134 (Nathaniel B. Shurtleff ed., 1853)(1645)Required "all inhabitants" to obtain arms for defense of themselves and the country. Muskets are to be full musket boare or basterd musket. No rifles should be under three foot nine inches in length, nor above four foot three inches.Item type:Item, 2 Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay 38 (Nathaniel B. Shurtleff ed., 1853)(1638)Military officers in every town shall appoint what arms are brought to public meetings. Also allowed officers to mandate safe disposure of ammunition to prevent acquisition by an enemy.Item type:Item, 1 Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay 85 (1853)(1631)"Further, it is ordered, that noe pson shall travell single betwixte theis plantacons & Plymouthe, nor without some armes, though 2 or 3 togeather."Item type:Item, 1 Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay 211-12 (1853)(1637)Whereas the opinions & revelations of Mr Wheeleright & Mrs Hutchinson have seduced & led into dangerous errors many of the people here New England , insomuch as there is just cause of suspicion that they, as others in Germany, in former times, may, upon some revelation, make some sudden irruption upon those that differ from them in judgment, for Prevention whereof it is ordered, that all those whose names are underwritten shall (upon warning given or left at their dwelling houses) before the 30th day of this month of November, deliver in at Mr Canes house, at Boston, all such guns, pistols, swords, powder, shot, & match as they shall be owners of, or have in their custody, upon pain of ten pound for ev§y default to bee made thereof; which arms are to be kept by Mr Cane till this Court shall take further order therein. Also, it is ordered, upon like penalty of [some unreadable amount of money, perhaps §, s., or p.), that no man who is to render his arms by this order shall buy or borrow any guns, swords, pistols, powder, shot, or match, until this Court shall take further order thereinItem type:Item, 1 Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay 190 (1853)(1636)"Whearas many complaints have bene made to this Court, both formerly & at psent, of the great neglect of all sorts of people of vseing the lawfull & necessary meanes of their safety, especially in this time of so much danger great fro the Indians, it is therefore ordered, that the millitary officers in every towne shall pride that the watches bee dewely kept in places most fit for danger by In- common safetie, & also a ward on the Lords dayes, the same to begin before the end of this first month, & to bee continued vntill the end of September ; & that every pson above the age of 18 yeares (except magistrats & elders of the churches) shalbee compellable to this servise, either in pson or by some substitute, to bee alowed by him that hath the charge of the watch or warde for that time, vpon paine of 5s for every default, to bee levyed by distresse by the surveyar of the armes, & to bee implyed for light & fyer, & such necessaries, by the discretion of the millitary officers./"