The National Shooting Sports Foundation is planning a lawsuit to stop a recent crackdown on "copycat" assault rifles by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey.

Massachusetts is one of seven states with assault weapons bans. Healey's office announced in July it would interpret the law to include copies and duplicates of common assault rifles like the Colt AR-15, which have usually had a few features modified by gun manufacturers to bring them in compliance with state law.

"They sell guns without a flash suppressor or folding or telescoping stock, for example, small tweaks that do nothing to limit the lethalness of the weapon," Healey said in a July 20 op-ed in the Boston Globe.

NSSF contends the attorney general's office lacks the constitutional authority to interpret the ban the way Healey has proposed. Larry Keane, the association's general counsel, told the Boston Herald that his organization has retained former U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan to bring a lawsuit against the attorney general's office.

"For 20 years, the requirements of the act were well understood by industry and consumers exercising their Second Amendment rights in the state of Massachusetts," Keane told the newspaper. "This attorney general, for purely political reason to advance her career, has chosen to trample on the rights of law-abiding citizens."

Healey's office declined the Herald's request for comment. http://bit.ly/2az6zTk

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