Massachusetts Keeps 2024 Gun Law, Arkansas Issue 2 Passes With 71 Percent

Massachusetts voters kept the state’s 2024 gun law on Nov. 3, 2026, with The Associated Press calling Question 9 for the yes side after midnight, and Arkansas adopted Issue 2 with 70.8 percent of the vote. Colorado’s Amendment 83 stayed at 44.4 percent in the Secretary of State’s count, short of the 55 percent a constitutional amendment needs, and the Winchester Model 1873 led Idaho’s state-gun advisory vote with 31.6 percent and a little over half the vote counted.

Question 9 asked Massachusetts voters whether to keep Chapter 135 of the Acts of 2024, and a yes vote keeps the law. WBUR published the AP call at 12:36 a.m. Eastern on Nov. 4, and the last AP count carried by GBH News before the call put yes at 69 percent with 49 percent of votes counted. Ruth Zakarin, chair of Yes on 9 for a Safe Massachusetts, said in a statement: “This victory belongs to the people of Massachusetts, who through their votes said a resounding yes to protecting this legislation and keeping our communities safe from gun violence.” The law requires serial numbers on all firearms except antiques and relics, counts bump stocks and auto sears as machine guns, and sets 21 as the minimum age to own a semiautomatic rifle or shotgun. The federal lawsuits that gun-rights groups filed against the law continue.

Issue 2 was referred by the General Assembly as SJR 11 and amends Article 2, Section 5 of the Arkansas Constitution. It adds lawful hunting, recreational use and other lawful purposes to the right to keep and bear arms, extends the right to ammunition, firearm accessories and firearm components, and calls it a fundamental individual right. The AP count carried by THV11 in Little Rock put the amendment at 612,343 to 252,638 with an estimated 98.7 percent of the vote in at 12:34 a.m. Central, up from the 377,139 to 179,566 count the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette published with the AP projection at 8:58 p.m. The Arkansas Secretary of State’s results site refused the newsroom’s requests on election night, so the Arkansas figures here come from the AP tabulation. A majority of those voting on the issue adopts it, and it takes effect Jan. 1, 2027.

Colorado’s election night reporting from the Secretary of State showed Amendment 83 with 910,597 yes votes and 1,138,891 no votes, 55.6 percent against, out of 2,049,488 cast on the measure. All 64 counties had uploaded results, the latest at 11:32 p.m. Mountain. Because the initiative adds a section to the state constitution, it passes only with 55 percent of the votes cast on it, and it trailed that mark by more than ten points. Amendment 83 would have added a right to hunt, fish and take wildlife by traditional methods to Article XVIII and declared hunting and fishing the preferred means of managing wildlife populations.

Idaho’s advisory question asked voters to choose a state gun from six options. The AP count carried by KTVB in Boise at 11:34 p.m. Mountain, with an estimated 56.9 percent of the vote in, put the Winchester Model 1873 first at 120,861 votes, 31.6 percent, followed by the Winchester Model 1894 at 25.0 percent, the 1873 Colt Single Action Army at 15.4 percent, the Remington Model 700 at 12.1 percent, the Colt M1911 at 8.8 percent and the M1 Garand at 7.1 percent, out of 382,154 votes. The Idaho Secretary of State posts its unofficial statewide results in an interactive application, and the Idaho figures here come from the AP tabulation. House Bill 932 made the vote non-binding, and the Legislature must pass a separate bill to designate a winner.

Arkansas’s amendment takes effect January 1, 2027. Massachusetts clerks finish reporting the Question 9 returns on November 4, Idaho’s Legislature can take up a state-gun bill when it convenes in January 2027, and Colorado’s result becomes official when the counties canvass and the Secretary of State certifies the election.