Bourne attorney Jay McMahon is running for Massachusetts attorney general on a platform that includes protecting Second Amendment rights in the Commonwealth.
But a Democrat in the race, Brookline labor lawyer Shannon Liss-Riordan, wants to repeal the Second Amendment.
McMahon panned the idea yesterday.
“It is incredible to me how Shannon Liss-Riordan, and other radical extreme progressive Democrats, want to take away our sacred Constitutional rights which guarantees our freedom,” McMahon told NewBostonPost in an email message. “It has gone beyond their wishes, and their dreams; and they are now actually fighting to strip Americans of their right to bear arms. It is shocking to me that these radicals run for government positions, where the job description is to uphold the Constitution and the laws thereunder; and they want to scrap the Constitution, and the laws thereunder. It is as if they are saying, ‘If you vote for me, I promise I will not do the job!’”
McMahon, 67, is the Republican state committeeman for the Plymouth & Barnstable District, which includes the towns of Plymouth, Kingston, and Pembroke in southern Plymouth County and the towns of Falmouth, Bourne, and Sandwich on Cape Cod.
McMahon went on to criticize Democratic support for gun control, arguing that it hasn’t solved crime in Democratic-run cities.
“Democrat policies have failed America. In particular those who live and work in the inner cities. We see statistics rising everyday of law-abiding citizens being killed, when and where they have been rendered defenseless to protect themselves under radical progressive policies and restrictive gun laws,” McMahon said.
He also said he sees the Second Amendment as vital to the right to self-defense, and he said he would protect gun rights if elected attorney general.
“We are witnessing even now where the people of the Ukraine certainly understand the value of firearms, and the need to have the right to protect themselves from aggressive evil. Why would we as Americans give up any of our rights under the Constitution? These are our individual inalienable rights granted to us by our Creator; and not rights granted to us by the government. As your next Massachusetts Attorney General, I will fight everyday to uphold and protect all of your Constitutional rights, which also belong to me as well!”
McMahon issued a press release earlier this month challenging the three Democrats in the race for attorney general on the Second Amendment.
“The unwarranted war that Russia has unleashed on its smaller neighboring country of Ukraine, is a powerful reminder that the citizens of Massachusetts, and of the United States of America, should never retreat on our right to keep and bear arms,” McMahon said. “My questions are simple: Do my opponents support the right of Massachusetts citizens to keep and bear arms? Do they support the right of our citizens’ to protect their own lives? Yes, or No?”
For a time, Liss-Riordan also ran in the 2020 U.S. Senate Democratic primary in Massachusetts. She dropped out in January 2020 — long before the primary — about four months after then-Congressman Joseph P. Kennedy III (D-Newton) joined the race against incumbent (and eventual winner) Ed Markey.
During her bid for U.S. Senate, Liss-Riordan called for more restrictions on guns than Markey (D-Malden) did. She said she does not think that the American public should have the right to keep and bear arms.
She made that clear in the aftermath of mass shootings in both Ohio in Texas in August 2019.
“Politics as usual in Washington has been devastating for the victims of gun violence and their families. I am tired of half steps, old ideas and fake urgency around the problem we face: the presence of guns in our communities. Enough is enough. It is time we take real action and repeal the Second Amendment,” Liss-Riordan said in a written statement on August 6, 2019. “I agree with the late Justice John Paul Stevens: the Second Amendment is ‘a relic of the 18th century.’ We need leaders in Washington who understand that, and have the courage and the will to fight to repeal the Second Amendment.”
Repealing the Second Amendment is an unpopular position in Massachusetts. A March 2018 WBUR poll found that 28 percent of Bay Staters supported it while 67 percent opposed it.
Liss-Riordan is one of three Democrats in the race for attorney general this year; the others are former Boston city councilor Andrea Campbell and Quentin Palfrey, the Democratic Party’s 2018 nominee for lieutenant governor. They’re running because the current attorney general, Maura Healey, a Democrat, is running for governor.
McMahon is the only Republican in the race for attorney general; he was the party’s nominee in 2018 against Healey.
Liss-Riordan’s campaign could not be reached for comment on Wednesday or Thursday this week. The campaigns for Palfrey and Campbell could not be immediately reached for comment on Thursday, April 14.
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Jay McMahon, via WGBH 
