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Jack McDevitt, chairman of the House speaker's Committee to Reduce Firearm Violence, presents the committee's recommendations at Northeastern University on Feb. 3, 2014.

(Shira Schoenberg for The Republican/MassLive.com)

BOSTON - A committee of experts tasked with reducing gun violence in Massachusetts has recommended numerous changes to the state's gun laws, as well as to its schools and mental health system.

The committee wants to set uniform standards regarding who is deemed "suitable" to buy a gun. It wants to forbid all convicted felons from possessing firearms and require background checks for all private gun sales. It recommends putting more of the burden on the state to renew gun licenses in a timely manner.

However, the committee declined to recommend some of the biggest changes to gun laws that had been proposed by legislators and by Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick, including further restrictions on magazine capacity and limiting buyers to one firearm purchase per month.

Committee Chairman Jack McDevitt, associate dean for research for the College of Social Sciences and Humanities at Northeastern University, said every one of the 44 recommendations was made unanimously by committee members.

"What we realized is that we wanted to see change, we wanted to see progress, but we also wanted to be realistic in proposing changes that would have a chance of passing," said committee member Robert Cerasoli, a former Massachusetts inspector general.

The committee was appointed by House Speaker Robert DeLeo, a Winthrop Democrat, in March and charged with making policy recommendations to the state to reduce gun violence. Nearly 60 bills relating to gun laws had been filed in the Massachusetts Legislature after the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. The committee's recommendations will be used to develop comprehensive legislation.

The committee was chaired by McDevitt and included experts in mental health, law enforcement, gun violence and related fields. It met 15 times and heard from legislators, police, mental health advocates, school superintendents, gun owners and gun control advocates.

Massachusetts already has some of the nation's strongest gun laws – for example, it maintained a ban on assault weapons even after the federal ban expired. The report found that Massachusetts has among the lowest rates of household firearm ownership in the country and the lowest rates of gun deaths and gun injuries, particularly from suicides and accidents. Between 2001 and 2010, there were 2,179 gun deaths in Massachusetts.

Many of the problems identified by the report were with a lack of standardization in the gun licensing process. For example, local law enforcement officials have discretion to determine whether a person is "suitable" to receive a gun license, making the application process inconsistent throughout the state. There are no suitability standards regarding who can get a firearm identification card, which lets a person carry rifles, shotguns and ammunition. The content and quality of firearms training courses vary widely.

As a result, the report recommended that the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association, with a gun control advisory board, develop standards for determining the suitability of applicants for a gun license and a firearms identification card. It recommended that those groups develop standards for a firearms safety course, including a live fire component, that would be required for license applicants.

"You shouldn’t be able to get a gun in one town, then go to next town and not be able to get a gun," McDevitt said. "There should be much more uniformity in terms of who gets those licenses."

The committee also targets gun trafficking by recommending that the state tighten restrictions on private gun sales. The committee wants to require background checks for private sales and require that checks and sales be done through a licensed gun dealer. It would increase penalties for failing to report lost or stolen guns.

Recently, gun owners have complained that administrative bottlenecks kept them waiting for months for their licenses to be renewed. The Executive Office of Public Safety says it is working to reduce delays, but the committee recommended allowing a person's license to remain valid for as long as the person is waiting for their renewal to be processed, rather than the current 90-day grace period. "By eliminating the 90 day period the onus is put back on the government to perform its bureaucratic duty," the report wrote.

Other recommendations include:

• Bringing Massachusetts in line with federal law by prohibiting a convicted felon from owning a firearm identification card. Currently, a card can be restored five years after a conviction.

• Eliminating the "Class B" license, which allows a person to carry a non-large capacity firearm, but not conceal it. Only a small number of these licenses are granted annually.

Committee members wrote in the report that the current restriction of large capacity magazines to 10 rounds "strikes a reasonable balance between public safety and personal liberty," so they were not proposing a change.

Asked about Patrick's proposal to restrict gun purchases to one a month, David Hemenway, a committee member and professor at Harvard School of Public Health, said that kind of law would help states that export guns used in crimes. Massachusetts, however, imports guns from other states with laxer laws, such as New Hampshire. "There's no evidence it would have a huge effect," he said.

The report also deals with school safety, mental health and urban gun violence. It recommends that each school be required to have a school safety plan, which includes communication between school and emergency personnel; robust mental health services; staff education; and the use of School Resource Officers, police officers placed in schools.

It recommends additional funding for school-based mental health services. It also recommends additional funding for mental health and substance abuse resources in urban areas; neighborhood outreach workers for at-risk youth; job programs for urban teens; diversion programs for juvenile offenders and other intervention programs that prevent youth violence.

Additionally, Massachusetts is currently not complying with federal laws requiring the state to report to a national database names of people who have been adjudicated mentally ill or have been convicted for illegal use of a controlled substance. There have been questions about what standard of mental illness should be used when it comes to screening for gun licenses, and how to balance patient privacy with public safety.

The committee recommended that, "only individuals who are drug dependent, substance abusers or have mental illness based upon a judicial finding of either substance abuse or mental illness and a likelihood of serious harm should be reported to (the National Instant Background Check System). Individuals who seek voluntary treatment or are involuntarily hospitalized for assessment and evaluation should not be reported."

It remains to be seen which recommendations the Legislature will adopt. DeLeo said only that the report is "an important step" and he looks forward to reviewing the recommendations as the House crafts legislation.

State Rep. Harold Naughton, a Clinton Democrat and chairman of the Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security, said the expert committee has "given us a lot to work with," although it is too early to know which provisions will be included in the legislation.

Naughton said he likes provisions making the gun licensing process more uniform, bringing mental health records into the mix in determining suitability, requiring live fire training, and extending gun licenses while renewals are being processed. He said his legislative committee has also been working with others to create school safety protocols and proposals for new criminal penalties relating to gun violations. His committee hopes to develop a bill by the end of February.

"I look forward to continuing to work with all sides on issue to come to common ground on protecting the people of the Commonwealth," Naughton said.

The report drew criticism from gun rights advocates.

Jim Wallace, executive director of Gun Owners Action League, said he was "disappointed" in the report and the lack of influence GOAL had in shaping it.

Wallace said he objected to provisions giving the Massachusetts chiefs of police power to develop standards for suitability, when some of the chiefs have "abused the standards" by putting roadblocks in front of potential gun licensees. He opposed provisions requiring a "suitability" determination for a firearm identification card, arguing that those are not the guns used in crimes. He said the report did not mention the "abject failure" of Massachusetts gun laws to decrease crime.

"It's very disappointing to see an attempt from an independent source that had the opportunity to actually take a good look, an outside look, at our gun laws and restructure them. That didn't happen," Wallace said.

Assistant House Minority Leader George Peterson, a Grafton Republican, echoed some of Wallace's points. Peterson praised the provisions related to firearm safety training, school safety, and the reduction in the number of types of firearm licenses.

But he criticized the report for failing to note the increase in gun violence since Massachusetts adopted stricter laws, and for giving too much discretion to police chiefs and the gun control advisory board in determining suitability.

"It is my belief that a better way to handle factors relative to firearm ownership should be the explicit definition of those persons who would be prohibited from owning a firearm," Peterson said.

John Rosenthal, founder of Stop Handgun Violence, praised the report for its recommendations requiring private gun sales to happen through a licensed dealer; giving the police more discretion in issuing rifle and shotgun licenses; and requiring that mental health records be transmitted to the national database. "I think the 44 unanimous recommendations of the committee are thoughtful and balanced," Rosenthal said. "These recommendations, if enacted by the legislature, will improve our gun laws and save lives."

Strategies for Reducing Gun Violence in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts by Garrett Quinn