Comm2A files Amicus in Important Safe Storage Case

Along those lines, since Heller provides for basic rights of self-defense within the home, I would think that the only storage restrictions would be to prevent access to firearms by minors, or to deter theft while the home is unoccupied.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but if husband has a LTC and wife does not, husband now has to lock up guns while away, thus depriving wife of self-defense and right to bear rights while in her home, as laid out in Heller,correct?
 
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but if husband has a LTC and wife does not, husband now has to lock up guns while away, thus depriving wife of self-defense and right to bear rights while in her home, as laid out in Heller,correct?

If I understand correctly, Heller allows "reasonable restrictions" including requiring licensing. So I don't think the scenario that you have outlined would violate the court's current understanding of the 2nd Amendment.
 
That was what I was uncertain about- possession w/in the home, vs license to carry. My take was that Heller allowed gun ownership for self-defense within the home, something DC residents were not allowed to do up to that decision.
 
That was what I was uncertain about- possession w/in the home, vs license to carry. My take was that Heller allowed gun ownership for self-defense within the home, something DC residents were not allowed to do up to that decision.
Yes, contrary to what liberal judges and AGs are contending, it did not restrict the right to the home, it just only specifically addressed it there.

Their interpretation that it is limited to "in the home" is untenable and won't survive the first challenge.
 
That was what I was uncertain about- possession w/in the home, vs license to carry. My take was that Heller allowed gun ownership for self-defense within the home, something DC residents were not allowed to do up to that decision.

People in DC still have to be licensed in order to possess a firearm, and their license is not a license to carry.
 
If I understand correctly, Heller allows "reasonable restrictions" including requiring licensing. So I don't think the scenario that you have outlined would violate the court's current understanding of the 2nd Amendment.

The court declined to reach the licensing issue, as Heller conceded at oral argument that licensing was acceptable to him as long as it was not arbitrary and capricious. That doesn't mean that licensing for possession is constitutional, just that the court hasn't examined that issue, because it hasn't been asked to. Licensing for possession will be challenged eventually. The first attack, Kwong v Bloomberg, which challenges excessive fees for home possession permits in NYC is currently being litigated at the 2nd circuit. The fees were set very high for the specific purpose of discouraging handgun ownership in the city. Permit fees designed to reduce the occurrence of protected activities have already been ruled unconstitutional in the 1st amendment context, and I think it's likely the same will happen here eventually. Even Bloomberg himself thinks so, as evidenced by his attempt to get the city council to lower the fees.

The oft scare quoted phrase "reasonable restrictions" appears exactly zero times in the Heller opinion.
 
The court declined to reach the licensing issue, as Heller conceded at oral argument that licensing was acceptable to him as long as it was not arbitrary and capricious. That doesn't mean that licensing for possession is constitutional, just that the court hasn't examined that issue, because it hasn't been asked to. Licensing for possession will be challenged eventually.

Thanks for the correction.
 
...it's established that a house doesn't count as a locked container...
Is it? I am unaware of any such case law.

I'm sure that Rob can drum up some case law (I don't track that), but I know that Glidden and EOPS has opined this since 1998.
Kevlar is probably correct and I'm not aware of any case law either. However, Glidden and most BFS instructors (including me) have been teaching storage as if that were the case. I think that this is done out of the abundance of caution that's necessary given the lack of specificity in 131L and the tendency of prosecutors to read the statute as broadly as they do. In fact one of the SJC justices raised the very question during arguments on Monday.

That said, I hope people understand there's a disticition between what might be required by the law and what's a good idea. I've been broken into three times in the last 15 years including just last May. Storing an unsecured firearm when not home might be legal if a court ruled that a locked house was a secure container, but that doesn't make it a good idea.

With respect to loaded guns, the justices and ADA were on the same page in that it was legal to store a loaded gun as long as they were in a locked container or had a trigger lock. I hope we all understand that a trigger lock on a loaded firearm may be legal but is a terribly bad idea.
 
Come to think of it, the other ADA I mentioned might be a good way to approach the storage laws. People who have arthritis, for example, might have great difficulty fumbling with trigger locks, or even keys to safes/lockers/boxes when pressed for time to defend their life.
 
Come to think of it, the other ADA I mentioned might be a good way to approach the storage laws. People who have arthritis, for example, might have great difficulty fumbling with trigger locks, or even keys to safes/lockers/boxes when pressed for time to defend their life.

There's a key distinction between the DC law invalidated in Heller and the MA safe storage law. DC required guns to *always* be stored that way. MA only requires it when they're not under the direct control of a license holder. The DC law was invalidated because it burdened everyone's self defense rights. It certainly burdened disabled people more, but it burdened the able bodied more than enough to be struck down. The MA law burdens neither, because you can keep guns ready to go if they're under your control.
 

I'm listening to this now. So far, I'm not impressed by the appellant's attorney.

ETA: I finished listening to it. I'm definitely not impressed by the appellant's attorney. The state's attorney did her best to defend the indefensible -- that carry means two different things in two different statutes that, by her words, "must be read together", and that he was guilty of "carrying" the gun in a motor vehicle precisely at the moment he was no longer in the motor vehicle. And her waffling on what is and is not a locked container didn't see to impress the court either.

One of the best parts was when she said something like "the car was carrying the gun" and one of the justices responded "but we're not trying the car." [laugh]
 
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