More than a year after Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey banned "copycat" assault rifles, anger at her move still riles gun owners as lawmakers consider bills to strip Healey's authority.

"I'm still wondering if I'm going to be prosecuted by the attorney general ever since last July for her decision to invent a number of new felonies," said Matthew Jackson, software engineer and gun owner from Marlborough.

Jackson said he owns guns that were legal at the time he bought them. "I don't like the idea that whether or not I am a felon is determined by the goodwill of the attorney general," Jackson said. "I feel like some amount of legislative process should be involved."

Last July, Healey decided to interpret the state's assault weapons ban, which covers copies of assault rifles, to apply to additional types of guns, which had not previously fallen under the ban. The move angered gun owners who had no notice of the change and questioned her interpretation. A lawsuit is pending.

Several bills being considered by the Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security would repeal Healey's interpretation of the ban, remove her authority to interpret the gun laws that way or change the language of the assault weapons ban. Bills were filed by Sen. Anne Gobi, D-Spencer, Sen. Don Humason, R-Westfield, Rep. Marc Lombardo, R-Billerica, and others.

Amanda Deveno, a firearms safety instructor and hunter from Bellingham, called it "disturbing" that there was no due process in Healey's ruling. "Our Legislature needs to work on bringing in rogue government agencies and personnel," Deveno said.

John Hohenwahter, director of government affairs for the National Rifle Association, said he was watching the Legislature when lawmakers debated and passed the state's assault weapons ban in 1998. "What the attorney general did last July is not the legislative intent what the bodies passed 1998," Hohenwahter said. "What she did absolutely stepped out of bounds by this regulation."

But Judy Mouradian, a retiree from Newburyport, said she worried about lawmakers stripping Healey's authority. "There's so much gun violence in this country, and it's getting worse and worse every day, and we need to do something to stop it," Mouradian said.

Rep. David Linsky, D-Natick, a former prosecutor, said Healey "acted within her constitutional authority as consumer advocate to stop the sale of copycat assault weapons and protect residents of the commonwealth from illegal weapons."

Stripping Healey of that authority, Linsky said, would "leave the state at the whims of the powerful gun lobby."

The dispute over Healey's actions came as part of a broader debate on the role of the state in gun control, at a hearing where the committee was considering 50 bills related to firearms.

Rep. Marjorie Decker, D-Cambridge, said Massachusetts is the urban state with the lowest firearm fatality rate in the country because of its strong gun laws. Decker said gun ownership is a "privilege" that can be revoked for safety reasons, the same as a license to drive a car.

But Jim Wallace, executive director of the Gun Owners Action League, took exception to that characterization. Wallace said gun ownership is a constitutional right. "(Decker) described our civil rights as a privilege," Wallace said. "I'm aghast an elected official could say that."