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Kind of hard to get an MD to write a "fit to own a gun" letter without mentioning the word firearm.
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trying to get my Class A but I am stuck
- Thread starter Garden12
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Kind of hard to get an MD to write a "fit to own a gun" letter without mentioning the word firearm.
Hey BH, It's my fault for the confusion. I did write pistol, but I did mean firearm. I wrote pistol and did not bother to fix it since I figured most people would know what I meant. Sorry for the poor wording on my part. So to sum it up the chief wants a doctors letter stating I am mentally fit to own a firearm. Now that I think about it, its weird because he feels I am mentally fit for an FID card. But for a LTC, he wants proof.
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Not weird if you understand the law. The FID is shall issue and the chief is specifically prohibited from adding other requirements. The LTC is "may issue" and the chiefs have broad discretion to use any information they wish to determine "suitability". While the practice is abusive, it is by no means a given that a challenge to said practice at a district court hearing will prevail.
This is a mexican stand off that has to be decided in court. The chief can demand the letter. The Doctor doesn't have to write it. Your civil rights have been denied. Justice delayed is justice denied. Sue the town for violating your civil rights, put a monetary figure on it and include attorney costs, and find a lawyer who will take on the case. Subpoena the whole freaking board of selectmen and find out why they are permitting the chief to do this. Subpoena the town manager and ask him if what other super legal things he allows the police force to do. It will end up going to the town's attorney who will tell Chief Wyatt Earp to knock it the blank off.
Addendum. This is not a target test, or written letters of reference. The chief wants to intrude, under the color of authority, into a legally recognized protected relationship between you and your doctor.
In as much as you have not been adjudicated as a mental defective or involuntarily committed to a mental hospital, your physical and mental condition is none of his damn business.
By the way, I bet half his freaking police force has confided in their doctors about mental health issues and many are probably on medication as well. I'd be depressed too if I had to work for a nut like him.
Addendum. This is not a target test, or written letters of reference. The chief wants to intrude, under the color of authority, into a legally recognized protected relationship between you and your doctor.
In as much as you have not been adjudicated as a mental defective or involuntarily committed to a mental hospital, your physical and mental condition is none of his damn business.
By the way, I bet half his freaking police force has confided in their doctors about mental health issues and many are probably on medication as well. I'd be depressed too if I had to work for a nut like him.
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Until Heller is incorporated, the MA legal system does not recognize firearms ownership as a right, so that's your first hurdle.
The second is that you are probably not going to find an attorney to take this case on a contingency fee basis and it is very probably you will hit your financial pain limit well before the town does.
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While this interpretation may be accurate, what about people with hearing and vision deficits, diabetes, seizures, heart conditions, neuropathy, carpal tunnel, stroke, insomnia...all these medical issues or their complications arguably could interfere with the ability of someone to handle a firearm. Now, lets look at our children...is anyone going to tell me that a child with ADD or ADHD should be denied his or her 2nd amendment rights. After you've gone through life and perhaps lost a child or lost a spouse, or hav gotten a divorce or have been forced to retire, you bet your on medication. 90% of the people over 65 we treat on the ambulance is on Seroquel. We get old, we get sick. ITS PART OF THE HUMAN CONDITION.
Now, I work in the medical field. And what goes on between you and your doctor, short of what you allow or a court requires, is nobody's business.
Now, I work in the medical field. And what goes on between you and your doctor, short of what you allow or a court requires, is nobody's business.
Right now, towns are turning off street lights so they don't have to lay anybody off. The last thing any selectman wants to do is miss days from their real job to sit and court and have their management skills challenged. It's not so easy for them. If you don't stand for something, then you stand for nothing. I don't want to go into details but I've had people fired and demoted because I stood up to forces much more powerful than me, and at significant risk. I once had an HR manager break down into tears at an unemployment hearing they were contesting. It was a beautiful sight because we caught her in a monumental web of incompetence and I walked out several thousand dollars richer than when I walked in .
These towns are wondering how they are going to make payroll next year. They can't afford to win such a stupid court case.
Perhaps it's easier for me, because I'm 52 and been kicked in the ass long enough that I stopped taking sh%t a long time ago. And yes, I have enough savings to wage a decent legal battle against your typical functionary.
No I didn't read the entire thread carefully enough as Scriv pointed out so I take full blame. I need to start getting more sleep because my comprehension obviously sucks when I'm tired.
The Chief's logic absolutely makes no sense though. So he says you're fit to own a firearm since he'll grant you an FID, but not an LTC because you can't get a Dr's note stating you're fit to own a pistol? wtf is the difference? A firearm is a firearm...obviously this particular Chief has some sort of bias against handguns
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The difference is in Mass General Laws relating to the requirements for each type of license.
The chief is REQUIRED to issue the FID if you meet the statutory requirements.
The chief is MAY issue and LTC if (s)he feels you are a suitable person to be so licensed.
The fact that you do not already know this makes me wonder what other very basic aspects of MA firearms law were missed in your training. I would suggest a refresher with a competent instructor who is well versed in MA firearms law and capable of competently explaining such.
That's what I thought about medical records, but I guess not. Like I said before I feel the chief does this on purpose. He figures, " hey the doctor denied him, he will forget about it." I honestly don't think he cares if the doctor approves. He just wants to put as much hurdles as possible in getting the LTC. This is probably standard in most towns, but he also requires three letters of personal recommendation. And to answer Half-Cocked question, someone asked me IF I was going to get abused or not, by authority. The person also said I should have contacted a lawyer beforehand but I did not thing that was necessary because of high costs. I will get money in the summer, I just cannot commit any money right now. And to a certain extend as well. I can't spend thousands of dollars over this, I will definitely spend some money but not a lot.
Rob...I am FULLY AWARE of the law and KNOW that an FID is shall issue when a LTC (A or B) is MAY issue. What I was implying is that I feel it is wrong (as we all do) for it to be this way and that we have so many police Chief's with their own personal agendas involved with the firearms licensing process here in MA. My comment was not intended to be ignorant and I apologize if it seemed that way; but at the same time I'd appreciate not being personally attacked without you fully understanding what I meant by it. I was simply pointing out one of the many problems with MA firearm law, making the rather "obvious" comment that it doesn't make sense (which I know we all agree on).
I need to apologize. I'm getting a little pushy and argumentive. It's been a long day and I'm tired. It just bothers me to see decent hard working people mistreated. I'm just exasperated. We're all good people here, and I'm sure everyone here wants to see the OP prevail. Good night all.
Regards,
Jeff
Regards,
Jeff
Don't sweat it it happens to a lot of us. I've been mistreated by my issuing department as well recently. I've had a T&H restriction on my Class A for around 19 months now and wanted to reapply here in my new green town. My issuing town refused to void my license because they specifically said "we do this to deter people from shopping around other PD's for an unrestricted license." They then proceeded to tell me I can petition once I have had the license for 3 years for a possible restriction removal. Some towns are red, some are red with traces of brown, some are black...it's all luck of the draw and where you're located. I wonder what kind of time table we're looking at for H. 2259 to go through the final stages of passing? Wouldn't we all love to wake up one day and have FID cards automatically become LTC's? And restricted LTC's automatically become unrestricted? I'm getting butterflies just thinking about it!
Unless I am mistaken, all legislation for this session must be passed before Summer "recess" (and electioneering) unless NOBODY objects during "informal sessions" held sporadically thru the Summer (and you can count on someone objecting to changing gun laws). That means that H 2259 would have to pass out of committee and thru both house and senate within the next 3-4 months in order to become law. Just thinking about this in an election year makes me feel that it will somehow die in this session and then we have to start all over again, file the bill, hearings, etc. rinse and repeat for the next session. The fact that they didn't hold the hearing until this late in the session tells me that they were trying to jam us up for time before passage or "die". I certainly hope that I'm wrong on this . . . [Worth noting: FOP filed LEOSA legislation every year for 14 years before it got passed into law . . . and then MA took >4 years before implementing a crippled version of it (which actually violates the Fed Law). These kind of changes don't come fast or easy.]
To some other points with some generalities (not necessarily specific to the case at hand).
- Town counsel for small towns love to drag out legal proceedings, because the are not salaried but bill the town by the hour. Lots of money wasted this way on trivial matters. They don't usually advise the town to drop the issue and just comply with the citizen/developer/businessman's request. I've seen this happen too many times to believe it to be coincidence (and not all were with the same town counsel).
- One could always try to appeal to the chief's boss in these cases. Might work and might not, but since taking legal action will piss them all off anyway, perhaps nothing to lose trying this in a "sit-down" first.
- Finding a cooperative doctor is still going to be the cheapest way out, but if you want to fight, rest assured that the chief is unlikely to knuckle under and thus he's likely to go "balls to the wall". I'd guesstimate that any judge at the district court level will side with the chief. No idea what the cost would be for a superior court appeal, but I don't think it will be cheap, and I'm not sure that the outcome would be any better.
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This is exactly what I was afraid of hearing
We all know it's going to take time, lets just hope it doesn't take as long as we're anticipating.And I'll also agree that the OP's best course of action is to find a doctor who will play ball, that way he is not allowing "the man" to totally stick it to him while at the same time not adding anymore fuel to the fire
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This comment is why I assumed that you did not know about the "shall issue for FID only" issue - as the above wording seems to state you thought the chief was making the differentiation on his own volition and that he "thought you were mentally fit for an FID" (a conclusion that has no relevance to FID licensing in MGL absent ajudication). I now understand that this is not what you intended to communicate, but if you look at the wording, I suspect you'll understand how the misunderstanding occurred.
I apologize if you took my reply as a personal attack - that was not my intent.
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Yup I'll admit it was poor wording on my part and can see why you took it the wrong way. No harm done! Off to bed now because I know my language gets very sloppy as the night goes on
![[smile]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/001.gif "Smile [smile]")
As much as this requirement is a PITA and meant to derail people from pursuing getting their LTC, it's surprising how many doctors are gun people in MA.
There was a BWH MD on the old MAF eList, there are a number of doctors that are members at BR&P . . . although the two I know are a retired Chiropractor and a Dentist. The Sports Med Doctor I used to go to was a member of another gun club I used to belong to. My Oral Surgeon is a gun person and when I once asked him about finding an MD for such a letter (a good friend who now lives on the North Shore was hit with this requirement) he told me to talk with my Dentist (who is a fisherman, not a gun guy) and he knew of at least one local doctor who did provide such letters to his patients. So they are out there, just ask everyone you know in the medical profession and you're likely to get a contact you need or if you belong to a gun club now, ask the Secretary who might be a doctor amongst the membership.
There was a BWH MD on the old MAF eList, there are a number of doctors that are members at BR&P . . . although the two I know are a retired Chiropractor and a Dentist. The Sports Med Doctor I used to go to was a member of another gun club I used to belong to. My Oral Surgeon is a gun person and when I once asked him about finding an MD for such a letter (a good friend who now lives on the North Shore was hit with this requirement) he told me to talk with my Dentist (who is a fisherman, not a gun guy) and he knew of at least one local doctor who did provide such letters to his patients. So they are out there, just ask everyone you know in the medical profession and you're likely to get a contact you need or if you belong to a gun club now, ask the Secretary who might be a doctor amongst the membership.
This hurdle came about after the Mucko McDonald shootings. It's a CYA move by a few Merrimack Valley towns.
Most people find that GOAL will answer all questions necessary. I have an unrestricted LTC in Boston and have never consulted an Attorney: GOAL has been able to answer any questions I have. If you feel more comfortable consulting one of the attorneys here or elsewhere, that's an option, of course.
McDermott, actually, And I don't believe he had any active license at the time of the shootings, his FID having expired due to Chapter 180. Moreover, these obstructionistic "requirements' would have done nothing, as the FID card is "shall issue" and not subject to these petty dictator's whims and caprices.
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A friend of mine is a man of modest means, but has good friends. The the judge asked who all the people accompanying him were, he introduced his legal team (two attorneys who were fairly well known in gun circles in their day) and his expert witness - chief of psychiatry from a major Boston hospital (he was a friend, not a patient, of this MD). He won his appeal
RFWAVELENGTH
Banned
It has been a requirement in Lawrence since at least 1978. The security guard at the bank where I used to work part-time (First Essex Savngs Bank, summer of 1980) told me about the hoops that he had to jump through to get his LTC. Andover, North Andover and Methuen appeared to have copied Lawrence's example.
And low and behold it seems the more restrictive towns also seem to be the higher crime towns...such as Lawrence, Methuen, Springfield, Cambridge... We all know if more law abiding citizens were allowed to carry the crime would significantly drop, as FBI crime stats have shown time and time again
M1911
Moderator
I wouldn't hold my breath, if I were you. I don't think it has a snowball's chance in heck of passing.
HooVooLoo
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Unless heck freezes over.
During my first check up with my doctor he asked me if I kept guns in my home. I told him thanks for his concern for my family but that it was none of his business. He never brought it up again.
I am a little confused about how a primary care doctor is able to make a judgement about one's mental fitness, assuming that he/she doesn't moonlight as a psychiatrist.
As far as your legal issue is concerned, get an attorney. Perhaps I can't afford it, etiher, but I believe that it is my civic obligation to fight unfair and anti-constitutional practices. Allowing things like this to continue only emboldens those who seek to take away your rights.
I am a little confused about how a primary care doctor is able to make a judgement about one's mental fitness, assuming that he/she doesn't moonlight as a psychiatrist.
As far as your legal issue is concerned, get an attorney. Perhaps I can't afford it, etiher, but I believe that it is my civic obligation to fight unfair and anti-constitutional practices. Allowing things like this to continue only emboldens those who seek to take away your rights.
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