Supreme Court Ruling and Question About Applying for LTC A

[GSG]

How do you figure? H 2259 as passed will make MA a shall issue state, as I understand.

"Shall issue" is the most important stopgap in the legal fight for gun owners rights in the US, but there's much more at stake here. I'm posting a link below to a post I made in another thread of your on the subject.

I was all about getting H2259 passed a few months ago, before the recent Supreme Court case, and I'm not even a Mass. resident. I wrote letters, made phone calls and rounded up others to get involved. Now I think it'll do more harm than good with the things that it sacrifices to get shall issue LTC's, because compromise is no longer neccessary on most of the subjects that bill touches on.

Granted, that's easy for me to say since I live in a free state under different laws, but as a fairly objective observer, I think that with the recent pro-RKBA ruling the common good will be served much better by delaying gratification, rather than a fast food drive through solution to fixing the MGL's. I've read the entire text of H2259, and the tempting morsels that it offers (no LTC restrictions, shall issue, no discretionary revocations, longer terms for non-res. LTC's, etc.) were the only hope you guys in Mass. had for getting some of those things changed before that ruling came down. Now the caveats aren't as easy to gloss over...a division of MSP set up to combat firearms trafficking (read between the lines, essentially they would harass FFL's and legal gun buyers), a tightening of the noose around machine gun owners, increasing penalties for laws that already aren't being enforced...those are just the consequences that are easier to see.

It may not be fun for you to read this, but McDonald v. Chicago didn't put an end to the legal fight for Mass. gun owners, it opened the door for a bigger, longer fight. It will mean time, money and agony for the "test cases" involved, but it will be worth it in the long run. The Mass. gun laws are broken at every level; how can we expect the groups in charge of licensing to toe the line for H2259 when they don't even uphold the things that they are required to do by law right now? The LTC restrictions that vex you are just a sympton of the greater problem in Mass.

That's what I mean, generally.

I think he means that it still has licensing, it still requires licensing to possess ammo, etc.

I think that the concept of gun permits is stupid and I'd like to see nationwide Vermont style gun laws some day (though a few of Vermont's gun laws still don't jive with some of the idyllic notions floating around in my head, hence the term "Vermont style gun laws"), but I'm a realist. I'm fully in favor of states entering into LTC reciprocity agreements with one another, LEOSA, legislation that forces the sucky states to recognize FOPA or reciprocity, etc. All of that is a step in the right direction IMO, even though it doesn't eliminate licensing in one fell swoop.

When Mass. gun owners only options were Vaseline or H2259, it had my full support. I wouldn't be heartbroken if it passed tomorrow, but I think that the recent Supreme Court ruling made H2259 obsolete, and worse, the harmful compromises it offered are still in place in it's wording. The lack of an individual RKBA in Mass. is a the biggest overriding problem that H2259 would fix, but right now, any Mass. gun owner with the money and the willpower can fight to see that right recognized. Heck, gun rights groups would probably bankroll court fights in MA now if people were willing to step up to the plate to see McDonald applied there.

The biggest issue I have with H2259 as of right now, today, is that there are feel-good, "This will help us get this passed" additives in it that have the potential to be a nightmare to anyone with an FID or LTC in Mass. The ominous new division of MSP who will act like ATF inside the borders of Mass. is the biggest one that I can see, but the proposed machine gun regulations, redefining what is considered a gun only in certain portions of MGL's to further muddy the legal waters in MA...if H2259 is passed with NRA, GOAL and everyone else cheering it in, no one's going to want to hear anyone complain about the thorns contained in it a few years down the road.

Look at the Gun Control Act of 1968, heartily endorsed by the NRA at the time, but now a source of agony with stupid import restrictions and a point system that make a Glock chambered in .380 in private hands in the US worth untold amounts of money, ATF gently pushing FFL's to computerize 4473's (backdoor registry anyone?), identity theft making people fail NICS checks, the Lautenberg amendment and 209A abuse, which was the natural result of encouraging the banning of certain classes of people from a right as inherent as self defense, and so much more. When an FFL files a multiple sale report, ATF launches an exhaustive investigation into the person it was filed on and their family members, and is free to use stupid assumptions to draw conclusions dangerous to the law abiding citizen. This was all made possible by well meaning compromises.

The things that GOAL put on the altar as a means to streamline H2259 and make it an easy pill for the legislature to swallow are the things that will come back to haunt legal gun owners in MA. The truth of the matter with an MSP firearms trafficking unit is that half the guns used in crimes in Mass. have already been reported stolen, and I'm willing to bet that there's a ton more guns being recovered in Mass. that haven't been reported stolen because they were legally owned or obtained in free states by owners who didn't retain serial #'s. There's even more guns that have been imported illegally into the US for use by criminals, so there's no paperwork on them anywhere. Yes, this happens, I can but won't point you to news articles of events in Mass. where this has been the case. Since so few of the recovered guns are submitted for tracing we can never truly know the correct figures though. Since such staggering numbers of the guns used in crimes in Mass. are travelling through totally illegal channels, LE's best bet for getting them off the street is to keep doing what they do every day.

Like that ex-girlfriend who you miss and wonder about all the time, I don't want to see Mass. gun owners kicking themselves every day years from now for letting legislation go down the way that it did. At the risk of sounding too harsh, much of H2259 is based on a dishonest, head-in-the-sand view of the legal situation regarding guns in Mass. A harsher penalty for gun crimes would be great, if any convictions for those crimes were even happening in the first place. More machine gun regulations would be fantastic if the criminals who regularly used them in Mass. (like Whitey Bulger) gave two shites about the kid who was tragically killed with the Uzi and the nuances of law that would somehow prevent that in the future. Aligning the state definition of what makes a gun a gun with the federal one would be marvellous if FFL's weren't already cowering in fear and acting like that's what the law already says, and selling guns with no true knowledge of their compliance with the AG regs.

That's the non-Reader's Digest version of why I'm not a fan of H2259.

 

[GSG]

How do you figure? H 2259 as passed will make MA a shall issue state, as I understand.

One more thing on this note. There's links in my signature line at the bottom of my posts to legal summaries that I've typed up on here. One of them is to a list of little known gun law violations that will DQ a Mass. resident from obtaining an LTC for the rest of their life. Shall issue LTC's wouldn't fix that legal trainwreck; if anything I bet that going shall issue would inspire certain red/black town chief's to find new extravagant violations to stick you with as a means of denying you your rights.

 

[Lank]

Thanks GSG for helping me look at the bigger picture. Truth be told- the suitability issue often causes tunnel vision for me.

 

[GSG]

Thanks GSG for helping me look at the bigger picture. Truth be told- the suitability issue often causes tunnel vision for me.

Right now that's easily the biggest issue that Mass. gun owners face. Thankfully there's a light at the end of the tunnel now.