NORTHBORO – Attorney General Maura T. Healey Monday largely rebuffed a public records request filed by a gun group seeking insight into her controversial “copycat” gun crackdown, citing several legal exemptions, including one regarding public safety.

“They responded, but they didn’t answer us,” Jim Wallace, executive director of the Gun Owners’ Action League, said when asked for his takeaway on a nine-page letter he received Monday, the same day his organization had planned to appeal the non-response from Ms. Healey to the secretary of state.

Monday marked 123 days since Mr. Wallace filed an extensive request for records pertaining to Ms. Healey’s July announcement that she was cracking down on sales of banned “copycat” assault weapons. Under public records law – which Ms. Healey’s office is ultimately charged with enforcing - government entities are supposed to comply with or deny such requests within 10 days.

“No one is above the law,” Mr. Wallace said in a Dec. 9 news release decrying the non-response. “Not even the attorney general.”

Asked about the timing of the response, attorney general spokeswoman Emily Snyder Monday noted that Mr. Wallace had sought a “huge breadth” of information. The request, consisting of 10 questions, also sought information about crimes committed with various kinds of assault weapons over a 12-year period.

The attorney general provided about 1,000 pages of documents responsive to one of the 10 questions lodged. Mr. Wallace said he has not yet received a compact disc containing the documents, but is not optimistic about what he will find given the exemptions noted in the letter.

On July 20, Ms. Healey announced a crackdown on a “loophole” in enforcement of an existing assault weapons ban she said has allowed thousands of banned guns to be sold in the state. But opponents – including dozens of lawmakers – have charged that she has misinterpreted and overextended the law in violation of the Second Amendment.

GOAL on Aug. 16 filed a six-page request for all correspondence subject to public records law that would shed light on Ms. Healey’s decision-making, as well as for historical information about crimes committed by people carrying the kinds of weapons she is targeting.

In denying most of the group’s requests Monday, the attorney general cited investigatory, public safety and “deliberative process” exemptions in public records law.

“By its nature, an ‘Enforcement Notice’ is part of an ongoing plan of investigation and enforcement that does not resolve or terminate on the date that the enforcement-related information is made public,” Lorraine A.G. Tarrow, assistant attorney general, wrote in the reply. “Our ongoing deliberative processes regarding the Enforcement Notice are incomplete, inextricably linked to our open investigations and include legal opinions relevant to actual and threatened litigation.”

Four gun shops, including Worcester-based Pullman Arms Inc., are suing Ms. Healey in federal court, claiming her action is “unconstitutionally vague, invalid and unenforceable.”

Other exemptions cited in the letter include an investigatory exemption and a public safety exemption.

“Disclosing the names and statements of those persons or groups with whom we communicate in the course of our investigations would not only put those people and their families or associates at risk of retaliation by others who do not share their views, but also jeopardize the general public’s safety by instilling fear in anyone who would assist us in our investigations,” Ms. Tarrow said.

Mr. Wallace said the statement was “troubling” to him.

“She’s basically saying gun owners are a threat to the people she’s working with,” Mr. Wallace said.

Ms. Healey was the subject of widespread online scorn following her announcement; one anonymous person posted her address on a gun forum in a thread in which others made threats.

Mr. Wallace said people are upset because they believe Ms. Healey has made them into “felons-in-waiting.” He said Ms. Healey’s directive is overly vague and is in his opinion designed to discourage people from knowing which guns they can and can’t buy or sell.

“She’s telling the public we have no right to know how she came up with this or who she worked with,” he said.

Ms. Snyder said her office isn’t trying to criminalize gun owners, noting that Ms. Healey does not plan to prosecute people who have already purchased the kinds of guns she’s targeting.

In an email, the office said its action was necessary because gun manufacturers were selling slightly adjusted "copycat" versions of AR-15 and AK-47-style weapons in contravention to state law.