PITTSFIELD, Mass. — It wasn't long after a shooting left nine people dead in a Charleston, S.C., church when Attorney General Maura Healey went there.

 

She was attending a national conference in South Carolina and she took some time to walk to the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.

 

"I was in a church but I was in a crime scene. It's wrong," Healey told a dozen or so gathered at a speaking engagement with the Berkshire Brigades at Downtown Pittsfield Inc. "This is a moral question for own country and we need to do something about it."

 

Massachusetts is already ahead of most the country with its laws but now, just 11 months into her first term in the elected office, she has a pulpit. Gun violence is a particularly important focus for not only Massachusetts to reduce but also nationally. 

 

"In Massachusetts, we have some pretty strict gun laws in place but in some other states it is harder to get a license to sell lemonade or hot dogs that it is to sell guns. It is harder to get a license to cut hair in some places than it is to sell guns. And in some states it is easier to get a gun than it is to get a driver's license. This makes no sense," Healey said. 

 

"There has been a mass shooting every single day in this country. There have been more mass shootings than calendar days in this country. There were 43 toddlers killed alone last year here in America. When will it end?" 

 

The attorney general says there are too many guns and is calling for "a federal ban on assault weapons. We should have better or universal background checks. We should have a system that works. And we should have once and for all and end to the NRA being able to buy and pay for legislation out of congress."

 

In her new position, Healey gets asked her opinion on a lot of things — many things out of her jurisdiction. She can advocate for national gun laws because other state's restrictions do impact Massachusetts. 

 

What she really doesn't have much of a say in is whether or not Tom Brady deflated footballs in last year's AFC Championship game. As "the people's attorney" she has been asked to represent No. 12 in the courtroom.

 

One day when asked by a reporter she responded to the question saying she wished the NFL could spend energy addressing its domestic violence issues instead.

 

A few days later, Patriots Owner Robert Kraft called her. Now, in Massachusetts, a new program is coming to hundreds of schools including two in Berkshire County called 'Game Change."

 

"It is going to teach teachers, coaches, administrators on how to identify and respond to relationship violence, conflict within their schools. And we are going to train students as well," Healey said.

 

She's also represented the people in outlining her concerns for the proposed Northeast Energy Direct Project, a massive gas pipeline eyed to cut through a number of Massachusetts towns including in the Berkshires. Proponent Kinder Morgan has been ordered to respond to the issues raised. 

 

"I think our office can roll across a number of different fronts. We can cover a lot of waterfront and that is what we are trying to do," Healey said. 

 

"We got after it on fighting for women's access to reproductive health care, standing up for Planned Parenthood, making sure that we were there to fight for criminal justice reform, calling on the end to automatic suspensions of drivers' licenses for those convicted of non-motor vehicle offenses, calling for more support for re-entry programs that will help people successfully get back into society."

 

It was a broad array of topics Healey discussed with the Berkshire Brigades and elected officials including state Rep. Tricia Farley-Bouvier, Mayor-elect Linda Tyer, North Adams Mayor Richard Alcombright, Sheriff Thomas Bowler, and City Councilor-elect Peter Marchetti. It was her second stop since taking office and was intended to have a conversation with supporters.

 

"Maura Healey is no stranger to the Berkshires," Farley-Bouvier said. 

 

Healey recognized most in the room from the campaign trail, when she pushed for votes in the Berkshires at least three times and found lots of support, support that helped her win the office. 

 

"We're 11 months in and I am more committed than ever," Healey told the crowd.

 

She helped craft the regulations around the state's earn sick time law, which she says is providing millions of workers with time to take care of their families while not hindering businesses too much. She says it "struck the right balance and made sense and now workers and families will benefit." 

 

To lead by example, the attorney general's office implemented six weeks-paid parental leave and demanded all workers take a mandatory unconscious-bias training program. 

 

Student debt is next on her agenda. 

 

"I believe this is the next great economic crisis facing our country. We saw it with the subprime lenders and we are seeing it now with the student loans," Healey said. "There is $1.2 trillion in student debt in this country. We went after it and sought to shut down predatory for-profit schools that are raking it in on the backs of vulnerable students, many of them single moms."

 

She's launched a new student assistance hotline to help college students understand their options better. And she's partnered with U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren in an attempt to create a loan forgiveness program for victims of predatory for-profit schools. 

 

"For far too long not enough students have known about the kinds of programs that exist to help them with program plans that are available through their own federal government. But since these loan services have done a lousy job and totally falling down on the job of serving students, they don't know about it," Healey said. 

 

Also ahead of her is focus on stopping the "pipeline to prison" so many young people have and tackling the opioid epidemic. Part of that was allocated settlement funds for diversion programs. That means pushing for literacy programs so that "everybody by the third grade can read."

 

"We've got to do everything we can to keep those people out of the criminal justice system," Healey said.

 

She's going after over-prescribers and trying to advocate for more long-term treatment beds for opioid users. She promised those in attendance that the epidemic will remain atop her priority list.

 

"We've got a lot of work to do. Some of it is enforcement and some of it is the bully pulpit," Healey said.

 

With all of that going on, one thing Healey hasn't done is live up to her campaign promise to open an office in Berkshire County.

 

"It just hasn't happened yet. It is still on the burner. I just need a location," she said. "It is something we are committed to doing in early 2016."

 

Nor has the office finished the investigation on the abrupt closure of the North Adams Regional Hospital, which she says is still an ongoing investigation.