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Handguns available for purcasse in MA

A

aig1

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As I am dealing with firearms laws in MA I find new conundrums to interpret/understand with each day. The latest issue is can I buy a gun in MA that is not specifically mentioned in the
"approved guns roster".

For example: Beretta "cougar" (8000, 8040, 8045, etc.), or Stoeger Cougar,
or a Makarov, or an Arcus 94, etc, etc? I.e. any gun not explicitly stated on that list, which gun is available with 10 or less round magazines (not sure if the Arcus 94 is but that is another story).

Will an MA FFL dealer have such guns, or accept such guns say if I bought them from "gunbroker.com"?

Comments and suggestions are appreciated.

Alexi
 
Welcome to the forum. Please do some reading on the subject (some are Stickies) in the Gun Laws forum.

These questions have been answered in great detail in the past and are there for your and any other new folks benefit. I don't have time now to re-research MGL chapter and verse and type it here again.

You can use Advanced Search to search on keywords in a particular forum to narrow down the results to be useful.

You may also need to change the User CP default mode to actually see a list of topics going back in time.
 
LenS said:
Welcome to the forum. Please do some reading on the subject (some are Stickies) in the Gun Laws forum.

These questions have been answered in great detail in the past and are there for your and any other new folks benefit. I don't have time now to re-research MGL chapter and verse and type it here again.

You can use Advanced Search to search on keywords in a particular forum to narrow down the results to be useful.

You may also need to change the User CP default mode to actually see a list of topics going back in time.
Click to expand...

:) I did do some reading and found a lot of answers to other questions that I did not ask here.

I find the stickies to be full of great information but navigating through them
is not always straight forward.

I did look for any thread that mentions "Beretta cougar" but all I found were sales/trades posts.

After spending few hours reading stickies I decided to give it a shot and ask directly.

Well, I will go read some more....

Alexi
 
kevin9 said:
Alexi, read this thread: Summary of laws regarding Interstate sales/transfers.
First post and last 2 posts answer all your important questions. The specific gun is not important; it's either on the list or it isn't. If it isn't the chances of finding one are slim indeed.
Click to expand...

Thanks Kevin,

It seams that what matters is whether I can find an MA person or a dealer to sell me a gun that I am interested in. Apparently even if a gun is on the EOPS list it does not necessarily mean that I can purchase it in MA.

So there is no one sentence answer to my question, unfortunately!

I will simply have to approach my buying guns differently. Instead of looking at catalogs and gun manufacturer's web sites I need to start with local gun stores seeing what they have available and deciding if I want to purchase any of their stuff.

What a pity...I really wanted a Beretta Cougar!

Alexi
 
aig1 said:
Thanks Kevin,

It seams that what matters is whether I can find an MA person or a dealer to sell me a gun that I am interested in. Apparently even if a gun is on the EOPS list it does not necessarily mean that I can purchase it in MA.

So there is no one sentence answer to my question, unfortunately!

I will simply have to approach my buying guns differently. Instead of looking at catalogs and gun manufacturer's web sites I need to start with local gun stores seeing what they have available and deciding if I want to purchase any of their stuff.

What a pity...I really wanted a Beretta Cougar!

Alexi
Click to expand...


But don't you feel safer in MA??? [rofl]
 
Four Seasons

I know many of you have dealt with Four Seasons firearms in Woburn as have I. They have a pretty good list of guns you can and cannot buy in MA.
I had a question about the legality of a certain gun in MA and Carl from FS gave me the answer pretty quickly.
 
vellnueve said:
FS and Carl know a lot, but even they occasionally get the facts wrong.
Click to expand...

And there are transactions (e.g. purchase of handgun frames) that are perfectly legal but Carl will not do! After fighting with the AG once ($$ in legal fees), he's made a business decision that I respect although I don't agree with it.
 
since I like the beretta "cougar" guns so much I wrote to beretta and Stoeger about the possibility of "cougar" models being approved for sale in MA.

There is the reply from Stoeger:
Dear Sir,

Unfortunately the state of Massachusetts still has not approved the
Stoeger Cougar's for sale in your specific state.

Sincerley,


Customer Service Dept.

-----Original Message-----


I live in MA, which is a state with approved firearms roster. There are
no Stoeger firearms listed. I am particularly interested in the "Cougar"
handguns. Can you give me any information regarding the possible
approval of Stoeger "Cougar" handguns for sale in MA?



I certainly hope to see them on the Approved Roster soon!



Sincerely,
Click to expand...

Should I read this as "not approved yet", or "will never be approved/it is disapproved" ?

Alexi
 
Last edited:
Unless you get a company rep stating that they are going
to submit the pistols for testing, I wouldn't get your hopes up.

Even then, 9 out of 10 times they don't follow through, or it takes
forever, or the AG whines and blocks the sale. (like what happened
WRT the glocks).

It doesn't hurt to ask, but don't ever expect them to actually
do anything, otherwise you're just setting yourself up to get disappointed.

-Mike
 
drgrant said:
Unless you get a company rep stating that they are going
to submit the pistols for testing, I wouldn't get your hopes up.

Even then, 9 out of 10 times they don't follow through, or it takes
forever, or the AG whines and blocks the sale. (like what happened
WRT the glocks).

It doesn't hurt to ask, but don't ever expect them to actually
do anything, otherwise you're just setting yourself up to get disappointed.

-Mike
Click to expand...

I just hope that gun manufacturers are going something and are not letting the AG to bully them around without opposition. I can see the business plan of "oh, its just one or two states so it is not worth the trouble and money", but I hope they have some guts and decide to pull through.

Meanwhile I will be looking to buy other Beretta guns.

Alexi
 
NH = Stoeger Cougar

I made the move from 40 miles South of Boston to 40 miles North of Boston to NH. I had wanted the Stoeger Cougar myself and then found out you cannot get it in MA. I made the move to NH for many reasons, but the fact that I can get most any gun I would want in NH sealed the deal for me to make the move.[grin]

Craig
 
aig1 said:
I just hope that gun manufacturers are going something and are not letting the AG to bully them around without opposition. I can see the business plan of "oh, its just one or two states so it is not worth the trouble and money", but I hope they have some guts and decide to pull through.

Meanwhile I will be looking to buy other Beretta guns.

Alexi
Click to expand...

Some manufs do have a sack, like S+W, SVI, Para, etc... and I still give
glock a lot of credit for even trying.

It's a simple matter of business though... as a gun manufacturer has to
decide if theyre going to be able to recover the up front costs in terms of
legal BS and testing, and so on. The problem is that the AG's subjective
black-box regs make this evaluation difficult because at the end of the day a
lot of it still involves gambling... you can get your guns on the roster but that
doesn't gaurantee long term saleability here. (due to the AG's regs).

The other problem is MA is pretty much a piece of "tainted cheese" in the
gun industry... nobody wants to touch this state with a 49.5 foot pole... hell,
there are even some FFLs that won't ship anything here, not even to other
FFL's and the like... that's how screwed up the reputation of MA is out in
the rest of the country in the gun community.

Course, things are a bit in limbo at this point, because the AG is different,
but I get the impression that Coakley isn't going to change a damned
thing...

-Mike
 
Last edited:
When did they last publish this list?

http://www.northeastshooters.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=493&highlight=list

LenS said:
Chris, pub in a major newspaper is required by the 1998 law. Maybe they switched to the Herald? I don't know as I do not buy or read either one. Last pub date would have been in March.

Here's the latest list:
http://www.mass.gov/Eeops/docs/chsb/firearms/approved_firearms_roster.pdf

I'm sure that nobody reads it. Yes, it is a waste of taxpayer money. Thank Cheryl Jacques and friends for that one. Web publication should be adequate in today's world, but it will probably take another century before the MA legislature figures that out.
Click to expand...
 
Because I didn't read this thread until now. If you insist, however...

aig1, it's spelled "purchase".

And there's a "g" in the word "jamming", while I'm at it. [wink]

Ross
 
If Beretta is "waiting", it sounds to me that the speaker doesn't have a clue.

Mfr MUST submit guns for testing. They get a copy of the results and have them sent to GCAB. GCAB reviews the results and recommends gun be added to list. Sec. of Public Safety accepts/rejects GCAB recommendations. List gets published on some schedule (~quarterly from what I see). Gun is then "approved for sale by EOPS". Mfr swears that gun meets AG Regs and places gun in marketplace.

AG sends "cease and desist order" if he/she objects.

That's the process.

Nobody submits "failed test data" for consideration, so everything that GCAB gets, gets approved. I don't think the Sec. of Public Safety has ever rejected a gun that had acceptable test results either.

Thus, if Beretta submitted it for testing, it would have shown up on the EOPS List by now.

Since the test criteria is almost the same between CA and MA, if it is on the CA List that would mean that Beretta never submitted it for MA approval.

Waiting for approval my ass!
 
LenS said:
If Beretta is "waiting", it sounds to me that the speaker doesn't have a clue.

Mfr MUST submit guns for testing. They get a copy of the results and have them sent to GCAB. GCAB reviews the results and recommends gun be added to list. Sec. of Public Safety accepts/rejects GCAB recommendations. List gets published on some schedule (~quarterly from what I see). Gun is then "approved for sale by EOPS". Mfr swears that gun meets AG Regs and places gun in marketplace.

AG sends "cease and desist order" if he/she objects.

That's the process.

Nobody submits "failed test data" for consideration, so everything that GCAB gets, gets approved. I don't think the Sec. of Public Safety has ever rejected a gun that had acceptable test results either.

Thus, if Beretta submitted it for testing, it would have shown up on the EOPS List by now.

Since the test criteria is almost the same between CA and MA, if it is on the CA List that would mean that Beretta never submitted it for MA approval.

Waiting for approval my ass!
Click to expand...


Either Beretta/Stoeger did not submit or someone here is dragging their rear. The CA roster seems much more extensive. I wonder (as has been stated before) how much of that is due to MFG's not carrying through and how much is the bureaucracy here getting in the way of expedient processing.

Just thoughts.... It does not change the fact that other states have it better than us, or that MFG's may have written us off.

Beretta has not responded to me yet (not holding my breath anyway)
Cheers,
Alexi
 
aig1 said:
Either Beretta/Stoeger did not submit or someone here is dragging their rear. The CA roster seems much more extensive. I wonder (as has been stated before) how much of that is due to MFG's not carrying through and how much is the bureaucracy here getting in the way of expedient processing.

Just thoughts.... It does not change the fact that other states have it better than us, or that MFG's may have written us off.

Beretta has not responded to me yet (not holding my breath anyway)
Cheers,
Alexi
Click to expand...

The reason the CA list is "much more extensive" is because of two things:

-CA has a gun market that is at -LEAST- 10 times the size of the market in
MA, if not more. (I'm probably understating this by quite a bit, I know its
hard to believe given that CA is seen as an anti state, but there are a lot
of gun buyers there!) Capitulating to CA's terrorism is a worthwhile investment
for many gun manufacturers. A return on investment is virtually guaranteed
and then some, even on more obscure models of firearms. Hell, even ed brown
has a couple CA certified guns, and he's basically custom house status.... the
fact that he bothered means the market is enormous enough to warrant doing it.

On the other hand, look at MA... there might be 250K LTC holders here total, maybe
less... out of that number, a lot of them are going to be "one or two handguns for the
rest of their life" types and not buying the latest gee-whizbang pistol thats out
there... so the market is pretty limited.

-In CA, if a gun gets certified, it -CAN- be sold, without any
extra "black box" regs like what we have here with the AGs regs. In CA
if the gun passes muster it can be sold- it's not a gambling exercise like it
can be in MA. (Look at all the guns Glock has had tested, only to have
none of them saleable in MA due to the AG's BS)


-Mike
 

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