State Representative Kate Lippert Garabedian, co-chair of the Special Legislative Commission on Emerging Firearm Technology, called the panel's first hearing to order and outlined the commission's statutory charge, hearing schedule and next steps.

The commission, created by the act modernizing firearm safety (chapter 153 of the Acts of 2024), will study the status, feasibility and utility of emerging firearm technologies including personalized firearm technology and microstamping. Garabedian told commissioners the study will review 'existing and developing' technologies, legal and constitutional issues, accuracy and effectiveness, commercial availability, the feasibility of a tax-incentive program, risks from digital manufacturing code and the costs and impacts of any requirement to use those technologies in the Commonwealth.

Commissioners introduced themselves and described backgrounds they said they would bring to the study. Speakers who described roles and perspectives included Nicholas Ashford, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who teaches technology and policy; Senator Peter Durant, who emphasized interest in suicide-prevention applications of technology; Todd Lizotte, who said he co-invented microstamping while working in microfabrication and described microstamping's potential forensic benefits; Jake McGuigan of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, who said the firearms industry is open to discussion but opposes mandates; Col. Jeff Noble of the state police, who described past work integrating ballistic technology into forensic processes; and Christina Ronan, designee of Attorney General Andrea Campbell, who said she has prosecuted fast-track firearm cases and is interested in microstamping's prosecutorial use.

Garabedian said commissioners will focus future meetings on one technology at a time and that the commission plans "one to two" meetings on microstamping, "one to two" on personalized firearms, and a separate hearing for public comment. She said the commission has invited witnesses from California, New Jersey and New York, the American Bar Association, and academic experts at Johns Hopkins, and named the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services among prospective presenters. The chair asked commissioners to submit additional recommended witnesses to staff.

The chair also read the statute's definition of microstamp included in the commission's authorizing language: a "microscopic array of characters identifying the make, model, or serial number of a firearm, etched or otherwise imprinted in two or more places on the interior surface or the internal working parts of the firearm that are transferred by imprinting on each cartridge case when the firearm is fired." The commission's final product, Garabedian said, will be a written report and recommendations to the General Court; she said the commission will seek a majority consensus but allows dissenting opinions in the final report.

Procedurally, Garabedian confirmed the commission's second meeting for Monday, Feb. 10 at 1 p.m., to focus specifically on microstamping technology. The chair asked for a motion to adjourn; a motion and second were recorded and the meeting was closed by voice vote.

The hearing was primarily organizational: it laid out scope and process, gathered commissioners' introductions and expertise, and scheduled technical hearings and invited expert witnesses to testify on microstamping and personalized firearms in the coming weeks.