Brady Campaign weighs in on MA "safe storage" law.

[LoginName]

Question is... will the NRA take up the cause in return?

(No... I'm not bashing the NRA, but this seems like another situation arising from Heller with SCOTUS/incorporation potential)...

Law Enforcement And Gun Violence Prevention Groups
Urge Massachusetts High Court
To Uphold Safe Gun Storage Law

First Appellate Court to Hear Second Amendment Challenge to Safe Storage Law
For Immediate Release:
06-29-2009

Contact Communications:
(202) 289-7319 Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence

Washington, DC – The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, joined by law enforcement and other gun violence prevention groups, filed a friend of the court brief today in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court urging the Court to uphold a life-saving gun safety law requiring that guns be secured to prevent accidents and unauthorized use.

The case, Commonwealth v. Runyan, will mark the first time an appellate court considers a challenge to a safe gun storage law following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Second Amendment ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller. The Runyan case involves a government appeal of a lower court ruling citing the Second Amendment in dismissing an indictment against a parent who failed to secure a semiautomatic rifle from his severely handicapped teenage son.

Daniel Vice, Senior Attorney at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, commented, “Massachusetts’ safe gun storage law protects children from gun accidents and is wholly permissible under the Second Amendment. With nine children and teens killed every day by gun violence, we must ensure that guns are kept secured from children.”

Former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger and the law firm Proskauer Rose are representing the Brady Center and other groups filing the brief pro bono. Mr. Harshbarger stated, “The Court should uphold Massachusetts’ safe gun storage law, which is one of many life-saving gun laws that have made Massachusetts one of the safest states in the nation in terms of gun violence.”

The brief in support of Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone’s appeal argues that a lower court improperly dismissed an indictment under Massachusetts’ safe gun storage law, G.L. ch. 140, Section 131L. This law allows self-defense gun use but requires that firearms be secured when not carried by or under the control of an owner or authorized user. The U.S. Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller struck down District of Columbia gun laws that broadly barred handgun possession and prohibited use of a firearm in the home, even for self-defense. The Court in Heller, however, specifically noted that its ruling does not call into question “laws regulating the storage of firearms to prevent accidents,” such as Massachusetts’ safe gun storage law.

The brief explains how studies have found a direct correlation between improper gun storage and accidental shooting deaths, and that unintentional shooting deaths among children have been reduced by twenty-three percent in states with safe storage laws. The brief cites Massachusetts’ long history of legislation keeping citizens safe from gun violence, including safe gun storage laws dating back to the time of ratification of the Second Amendment.

The groups on the brief are the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, International Brotherhood of Police Officers, Legal Community Against Violence, Massachusetts Chiefs of Police, Massachusetts Million Mom March Chapter of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, and Stop Handgun Violence.

http://www.bradycampaign.org/media/release.php?release=1150

 

[bostonasphalt2]

LOL this state is NOT one of the safest in terms of gun violence!

 

[Bob P]

Of course Scotty's got to support it. He's hitched his political wagon to guncontrol and will sink or swim with it.

 

[MasterShinken]

wait... Safest states for gun violence??? huh? Does anyone ever actually Ask them to substantiate this?

 

[terraformer]

Question is... will the NRA take up the cause in return?

I would start looking for locusts if they did....