Turkey hunting drama with police over shotgun.. advice

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My friend just called me all upset and was asking for advice... He was turkey hunting legally came out of the woods to return t his vechile with unloaded gun..

Police officer waiting and see my friend who has an FID card with a Standard Benelli Super Black Eagle shotgun.. (only accepts 5 shells). Police officer takes my friends gun and asks to see the FID/LTC. My friend shows him his FID....

Cops now states that he is taking the gun because "its a semi automatic shotgun and all semis are considered High capacity"..... Friend gives the cop his gun and informs him to call EPO. Cops further more wants to see the gun case where it HAS to be locked......

Friend shows the Cop page from Mass.GOV stating that it doesn't need to be locked and that the shotgun is not high capacity as it can not accept more the 5 shells.

EPOS show up and states that my friend is correct and to return the gun.. Cop gives him the gun back but states that he SHOULD only have a pump and not a benelli AND that if he catches him again he wont be getting another "break" ...Cops states that bc the gun COULD have an extension tube placed on the gun AND its a semiautomatic its high capacity. Furthermore who ever is selling you a Benelli shotgun is breaking the law selling to him....



I told him that i feel the cop is wrong and doesn't know his gun laws.... I realize that a pump can Never be considered high capacity but I'm 99% sure that theres 0 info or laws about owning a 5 shot shotgun with an FID.. regardless if its benelli or remington
 
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Where was this?

why the hell would LEO care what type of shotgun used for turkey hunting? WTF

well this just re-affirms my reasoning for leaving mass to do any hunting. I have never hunted in this state and hopefully never will.
 
Time to set that cop up for a fall. This will take some folks with level heads and big balls. If has that and some will friends, He needs to go back to that area and do exactly a he did in this instance and have his friends video and audio record the whole thing. The shove it up that cop's ass.

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It wasn't about hunting it was an anti gun thug cop, who did not know the law abusing his authority. The OP needs to name the dept and the shitbag stupid cop.

This and this. The cop is a moron and he was even corrected by the EPs. If the cop actually does something like charge the guy or take away the shotgun, then the guy should have a softball court case in his lap and will just need a lawyer who is experienced enough in 2A matters or basic gun law.
 
Sounds like someone needs to learn the laws they are attempting to enforce. What a dipshit. You can hunt turkey with a KSG if you wanted to (as long as it had the tubes blocked correctly). Not sure why you would, but its been done.

I dont think I would be able to tolerate this level of unprofessional behavior.

These are the three magic words I tell my wife when she's berating some poor customer service clone over the phone: "Get your supervisor."
 
Problem is that the black letter of the (dumb) law wrt large-capacity does indeed infer that anything with an external magazine can be deemed large-capacity. If you can extend a tube, in theory the way the law is written one could be charged/prosecuted. This is an argument that JasonS (seemingly MIA Mod) used to make every time I answered this question.

It was NOT the intent of the law to be this broad and the CMR makes the gun in question OK, but the law is a problem when read literally.
 
Thanks for the replys... A good friend told me as well that if he wasn't able to possess it with an FID the computer would have red flagged it as a gun listed onto HC list and the sale wouldn't have been able to be completed.... Also my buddy purchased the gun in the manner it is in now.
.... My buddy going to get his LTC now just because of this..... Isn't this state nice.
 
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Thats some b.s., i'd be p*ssed for the inconvenience of pleading my case.

Wondering what reasoning the cop had to sit there and wait for him other than to be an Ahole.
 
I would have laughed my ass off when the cop said "he SHOULD only have a pump and not a benelli AND that if he catches him again he wont be getting another "break"

What? you're going to make up charges there, Barney?
 
That is why it is time to set the cop up for his fall.

What fall? Paid administrative leave at worse? [rofl] (and even that is doubtful). Unless you can set up a scenario where you can bait the bastard into something thats like USC 1983 worthy, nothing will happen.

-Mike
 
Thats some b.s., i'd be p*ssed for the inconvenience of pleading my case.

Wondering what reasoning the cop had to sit there and wait for him other than to be an Ahole.

Would not be surprised if there was another party involved. A whiney party.
 
Maybe I have a flair for the dramatic but I wouldn't have even let him touch my gun if he said he's going to take it away especially if I know I'm in the right. With all due respect officer, you aren't confiscating my gun you better check your facts again. I don't mean to be confrontational or insinuate that I want to start a gunfight in the middle of the road but at that point I don't know you from some other shmuck trying to steal my firearms. Call your boys and we can discuss this civilly, I've got all day.

And BTW, what's with the extension tube crap anyway? By that standard any damn gun could be considered high capacity. We put a damn robot on Mars I'm pretty sure we could figure out how to manipulate a gun to accept more than its intended amount of rounds.
 
Maybe I have a flair for the dramatic but I wouldn't have even let him touch my gun if he said he's going to take it away especially if I know I'm in the right. With all due respect officer, you aren't confiscating my gun you better check your facts again. I don't mean to be confrontational or insinuate that I want to start a gunfight in the middle of the road but at that point I don't know you from some other shmuck trying to steal my firearms. Call your boys and we can discuss this civilly, I've got all day.

And BTW, what's with the extension tube crap anyway? By that standard any damn gun could be considered high capacity. We put a damn robot on Mars I'm pretty sure we could figure out how to manipulate a gun to accept more than its intended amount of rounds.

And then there's these. My Mossberg 500 holds like 9-10 of them.

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Maybe I have a flair for the dramatic but I wouldn't have even let him touch my gun if he said he's going to take it away especially if I know I'm in the right. With all due respect officer, you aren't confiscating my gun you better check your facts again. I don't mean to be confrontational or insinuate that I want to start a gunfight in the middle of the road but at that point I don't know you from some other shmuck trying to steal my firearms. Call your boys and we can discuss this civilly, I've got all day.

And BTW, what's with the extension tube crap anyway? By that standard any damn gun could be considered high capacity. We put a damn robot on Mars I'm pretty sure we could figure out how to manipulate a gun to accept more than its intended amount of rounds.

Drop the gun! Stop resisting! BANGBANGBANG. He came right at me, with a semiAUTOMATIC military grade shotgun.

The officer went home safe.
 
My son was turkey hunting last year just off a dirt road in the woods. A police cruiser drove down the dirt road and as soon as the cruiser went by, a turkey stepped out of the woods. My son got his turkey. He saw the officer later that day and the officer thanked him for not shooting his bumper off. What a difference in attitude between these two officers.
 
Drop the gun! Stop resisting! BANGBANGBANG. He came right at me, with a semiAUTOMATIC military grade shotgun.

The officer went home safe.
Yea I would obviously try not to have the gun in hand while puffing up, LOL. Gun is out of my hands and in the car. You wanna search it, show me a warrant or bring someone else who knows wtf they're talking about.
 
Here's the problem with the law as written (bolded part):

MGL C. 140 S. 121 (Definitions):

“Large capacity feeding device",
(i) a fixed or detachable magazine, box, drum, feed strip or similar device capable of accepting, or that can be readily converted to accept, more than ten rounds of ammunition or more than five shotgun shells; or
(ii) a large capacity ammunition feeding device as defined in the federal Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act, 18 U.S.C. section 921(a)(31) as appearing in such section on September 13, 1994. The term “large capacity feeding device” shall not include an attached tubular device designed to accept, and capable of operating only with, .22 caliber ammunition.

“Large capacity weapon”, any firearm, rifle or shotgun:
(i) that is semiautomatic with a fixed large capacity feeding device;
(ii) that is semiautomatic and capable of accepting, or readily modifiable to accept, any detachable large capacity feeding device;

The tube can be "modified" to be "large capacity" by adding an extension. Yes, by this poor wording everything (except .22 tube-fed) with an external magazine/tube meets the above definition.
 
Thanks for the replys... A good friend told me as well that if he wasn't able to possess it with an FID the computer would have red flagged it as a gun listed onto HC list and the sale wouldn't have been able to be completed.... Also my buddy purchased the gun in the manner it is in now.
.... My buddy going to get his LTC now just because of this..... Isn't this state nice.


Honestly this is his best bet. As Len wrote, the cop is actually close to correct based on the black letter law. Semi-auto shotguns are a black hole of legal BS in this state with the AWB to the point that the regs are almost universally ignored. According to a strict reading, almost all semi shotguns would be banned under the AWB as a result of extension tubes and mini shells. Is it silly? Yep but that is the way tis written:

"(vii) any semiautomatic shotgun that cannot hold more than five rounds of ammunition in a fixed or detachable magazine."

ETA (and as Len beat me above)

WRT the "system flagging non FID firearms", that is well beyond the capability of the FA10 system.
 
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Here's the problem with the law as written (bolded part):

MGL C. 140 S. 121 (Definitions):



The tube can be "modified" to be "large capacity" by adding an extension. Yes, by this poor wording everything (except .22 tube-fed) with an external magazine/tube meets the above definition.
But any gun can be modified to be large capacity. "Readily" is the tricky part
 
I don't hunt, but if I did I would have a go pro mounted to my shirt. Same for any other activity that involved using fire arms on public property. Anything where a confrontation with police or moonbats might be likely.

It's cheap insurance
 
Maybe the cop has a friend that takes confiscated guns and "holds" them until everything is straightened out, then presents the aggrieved party with an outrageous bill for "safe storage". You know kind of like some unnamed place in the Metrowest area does.
 
This needs to be in every newspaper and sports column that will carry it. The word of this incident needs to be spread far and wide to all fudds that think that they don't want to take our "hunting guns".



Bob
 
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