What does District of Columbia v. Heller mean to us?

Joined
Apr 6, 2009
Messages
18
Likes
0
Feedback: 0 / 0 / 0
The supreme court comes out and says that licensed citizens have the right to legally possess and use firearms for self defense so how is MA still able to restrict licenses?
 
The supreme court comes out and says that licensed citizens have the right to legally possess and use firearms for self defense so how is MA still able to restrict licenses?

Use the search button here. Short answer: 1) incorporation of the 2nd Amendment has not been decided and 2) MA laws are very different than the DC laws, which were the laws at issue in Heller.
 
because Heller dealt with self defense in the home and affirmed reasonable restrictions. You can defend yourself in the home with an FID card and a shotgun, nowhere does it say you have to be issued a machine gun license.

Also Heller means squat until we get a state court ruling that holds water that incorporates it into MA law.

Till then it's just a SOCUS ruling that means nothing to MA residents.
 
Wouldn't that be a federal court ruling, not a state court ruling?

IANAL, but a MA Appellate Court is certainly free to rule based on Heller (in our favor) and if they did, it would hold water in MA . . . even if the Feds (USSC) hadn't "incorporated" the 2nd A yet.

That said, I seriously doubt that this would happen however.
 
IANAL, but a MA Appellate Court is certainly free to rule based on Heller (in our favor) and if they did, it would hold water in MA . . . even if the Feds (USSC) hadn't "incorporated" the 2nd A yet.
True, but a MA court can't decide incorporation -- that has to be done by a federal court. Correct? What I mean to say is that a MA Appellate Court can decide that Heller applies, but that does not change the fact that in federal court, incorporation is still undecided.

That said, I seriously doubt that this would happen however.
Agreed.
 
Correct, the MA Court can't decide "incorporation", but they can certainly consider Heller in making a decision on a MA case and thus set a precedent.
 
I agree with the comments, but where is the case law on these issues. MA has no challenges to their licensing procedure. And I am not talking about denials of machine gun licenses (lets be reasonable here) I am talking about restricting the rights of citizens guaranteed by US Constituton and elaborated more in the MA Constitution. There has to be some case recently challenged the Constittuonality of the firearm licensing in MA.

Clearly M.G.L is not guarenteeing equal protection, consider this:

Joe Blow from Town A get a restricted license and Joe Shmoe from Town X get an unrestricted license when they are both the same age, hold the same employment, both have impeccable records, applied on the same day and are both outstanding citizens.

Or Consider this: Joe Doe and Tom Blow from Town A: both apply on the same day, both have spotless records, except Joe is a 50 year old unemployed citizen and Tom is a 25 year old graduate student. The town issues Joe an ALWP license and restricts Tom.

IMO: (a manifestation of knowledge from my CON LAW class) I believe that the system MA has setup is too arbitrary and not fundamentally sound. I would have no problem with the restrictions if it was the same across the board for every town. There are no guidelines except for the state imposed guidelines that suggest who and who can't have a license (21 years of age, take a class, no criminal record, ect.). Everything the Police Chief does is based on a biased classification of persons which is what the Equal Protection Clause seeks to eliminate.

Like I said if EVERYONE in the state was denied an ALWP's license UNLESS they NEED it for employment then that's fine. But the discrepancies are clearly not fair and it is totally unreasonable to move to a different town on an account that the Police Chief has bias against new licensee's. Now I claim to be no expert at all, but I believe everyone has a right to protect their person whether or not within the home. Honestly even if I had an ALWP's license I would never carry it unless I felt I needed to i.e. meeting someone from craigslist to complete a sale of property ect. ect. ect.

What is everyones opinion?
 
We all agree that MA laws are crap. We all think they violate the 2nd Amendment. Most Massachusetts judges disagree.

There are some lawsuits in federal court in IL to press the issue of incorporation of the 2nd Amendment. That will help us if those succeed, but that is a fair ways away.

And even then, Heller did not concern carry permits -- it only concerned having guns in the home and whether they needed to be locked up. So the whole issue of discretionary carry permits is undecided. Furthermore, Heller allowed for "reasonable restrictions" but did not define them.

It will take decades and millions of dollars to flesh out the Heller decision. In my humble and uneducated opinion, Heller is not likely to make a significant impact on MA laws in the near future.
 
the scariest part about Heller is that the decision was 5-4. That means that when a conservative leaves, and our new wonderful president gets to appoint a new justice, we are in for it.
 
Wouldn't that be a federal court ruling, not a state court ruling?

In theory, could be either.

State courts are required to adhere to federal law, and state courts ruling that state statutes or actions by state actors violate some provision of the federal Constitution come down every day.

In practice, the issue is a bit more complicated, but this horse has been beaten to death in prior posts.
 
True, but a MA court can't decide incorporation -- that has to be done by a federal court. Correct? What I mean to say is that a MA Appellate Court can decide that Heller applies, but that does not change the fact that in federal court, incorporation is still undecided.

Not correct. If (hypothetically speaking) the Supreme Judicial Court were to hold that the Fourteenth Amendment to the federal Constitution incorporates the Second Amendment, then that holding would bind all other Massachusetts courts on the same point of law, unless and until either the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit or the Supreme Court subsequently held differently.

However, I quickly point out that my point arises out of the need to correct a misapprehension of federalism under our Constitution, and not a prediction of things that are likely to ever happen.
 
I agree with the comments, but where is the case law on these issues. MA has no challenges to their licensing procedure. And I am not talking about denials of machine gun licenses (lets be reasonable here) I am talking about restricting the rights of citizens guaranteed by US Constituton and elaborated more in the MA Constitution. There has to be some case recently challenged the Constittuonality of the firearm licensing in MA.

Clearly M.G.L is not guarenteeing equal protection, consider this:

Joe Blow from Town A get a restricted license and Joe Shmoe from Town X get an unrestricted license when they are both the same age, hold the same employment, both have impeccable records, applied on the same day and are both outstanding citizens.

Or Consider this: Joe Doe and Tom Blow from Town A: both apply on the same day, both have spotless records, except Joe is a 50 year old unemployed citizen and Tom is a 25 year old graduate student. The town issues Joe an ALWP license and restricts Tom.

IMO: (a manifestation of knowledge from my CON LAW class) I believe that the system MA has setup is too arbitrary and not fundamentally sound. I would have no problem with the restrictions if it was the same across the board for every town. There are no guidelines except for the state imposed guidelines that suggest who and who can't have a license (21 years of age, take a class, no criminal record, ect.). Everything the Police Chief does is based on a biased classification of persons which is what the Equal Protection Clause seeks to eliminate.

Like I said if EVERYONE in the state was denied an ALWP's license UNLESS they NEED it for employment then that's fine. But the discrepancies are clearly not fair and it is totally unreasonable to move to a different town on an account that the Police Chief has bias against new licensee's. Now I claim to be no expert at all, but I believe everyone has a right to protect their person whether or not within the home. Honestly even if I had an ALWP's license I would never carry it unless I felt I needed to i.e. meeting someone from craigslist to complete a sale of property ect. ect. ect.

What is everyones opinion?


While you are correct in observing that this situation is legally untenable, for technical reasons it has virtually nothing to do with the federal Constitutional principle of "equal protection." The vice of the Massachusetts licensing scheme is that it delegates the making of social policy to individual police chiefs and therefore violates the delegation doctrine (a rule arising simultaneously under both the Federal and Massachusetts Constitutions). Once quite viable, the "delegation doctrine" is believed to be essentially dead federally and likely vestigial in Massachusetts law.

For those attracted to the arcane, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nondelegation_doctrine

Yes, I'm picking a very narrow and technical nit. Hard habit to break. Apologies in advance.
 
Last edited:
RKG: While the SJC could decide that the 2nd Amendment governs MA, would that decide incorporation? Wouldn't incorporation still be undecided for the other states?
 
The supreme court comes out and says that licensed citizens have the right to legally possess and use firearms for self defense so how is MA still able to restrict licenses?


The Heller ruling adreesed the issue of owning a handgun for self defense in the home.

Ma license restrictions have nothing to do with this as a LTC regardless of restrictions allows for having a handgun for self defense in the residence.

Therefore Heller is not applicable (as it pertains to LTC restrictions)

Furthermore the Heller decision allows for "reasonable restrictions" to be placed on firearms ownership.

What the courts rule as being "reasonable restrictions" is another matter. As it pertains to Heller I would say that Ma LTC restrictions would be considered "reasonable".

The only issue that I could see from Heller that may apply to MA is the issue of storage/security of a firearm in the residence. There is a case on this currently due to be heard in the Ma SJC.
 
The only issue that I could see from Heller that may apply to MA is the issue of storage/security of a firearm in the residence. There is a case on this currently due to be heard in the Ma SJC.

Loss of an LTC means loss of handgun ownership rights in MA. If Heller is incorporated, a good case can be made that LTC revocations would require the same standard of due process and proof as is needed for revocation of any other right. It would be hard for a court to concurrently hold that firearms ownership is a right, and and also hold that a police chief can take that right away from someone who has not been convicted or even charged with a crime based on rumor, innuendo, unproven allegations or exercise of one of the other constitutional rights. The MA decision "Exercise of the 5th is cause to lose the 2nd" would be a reasonable target in a post incorporation MA.
 
IANAL, but a MA Appellate Court is certainly free to rule based on Heller (in our favor) and if they did, it would hold water in MA . . . even if the Feds (USSC) hadn't "incorporated" the 2nd A yet.

That said, I seriously doubt that this would happen however.

There's still reason to hope...

BARNSTABLE — A U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down a requirement that guns be locked or disassembled when stored has convinced a Barnstable District Court judge to dismiss a firearms charge against a Massachusetts state trooper.

State police Lt. Richard Bolduc was charged last summer with illegally storing a large-capacity firearm in the presence of a minor. Bolduc's 12-year-old son took his father's police-issued handgun from a bureau in their Sandwich home, pointed it at a 5-year-old neighbor, and pulled the trigger, according to court records.

While the gun was not loaded and no one was hurt, police said they found a full clip in the same drawer where it was stored. Bolduc's son was charged separately as a minor.

The parents of the 5-year-old neighbor could not be reached for comment before press time last night.

Earlier this month, Bolduc's attorney, Daniel O'Malley, argued before Judge Joan Lynch that the firearms charge should be dropped based on the June 26 Supreme Court ruling.

In District of Columbia v. Heller, the court declared a Washington, D.C., gun ban unconstitutional and struck down the storage requirements because, the court decided, they violated a citizen's right of self protection.

Lynch took the matter under advisement, then issued a written decision Thursday.

Judge W. James O'Neill officially declared the case dismissed in Barnstable District Court yesterday.

Bolduc declined to comment after the brief hearing.

After he was charged, Bolduc was placed on restricted duty by the state police, a status that remained unchanged as of 1 p.m. yesterday, a spokeswoman said.

Bolduc's gun was been taken away, and he was reassigned to the Middleboro barracks, where he no longer has access to a state police vehicle.

Bolduc could still face sanctions from the state police.

The state agency's firearms policy states that all service weapons must be locked away and unloaded when a trooper is off-duty.

http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090221/NEWS/902210317
 
Has anyone in this state ever challenged the method of issuing LTC's under the basis of 'equal protection under the law' or that the chief's ability to pick and choose is 'arbitrary and capricious'?

Boy, let me hear a few legal terms and I'm a terror.
 
Little Tidbit I found in My Constitutional Law Supplement-->

So I am outlining my Constitutional Law Course for my final and although we never discussedthe 2nd Amendment in any way I just flipped to the 2 pages this supplement has provided this glorious right.

This is what is says about the incorporation issue: To date the only amendments not incorporated from the Bill of Rights are (5th Amendment right to grand jury indictment and 7th Amendment right to jury trial in civil cases)

But it does mention Heller: "2nd Amendment applicable to individuals--> The Amendment confers on private individuals a right to keep basic firearm, including handguns,at home for self-defense (This has been reiterated several times in this thread)

BUT--> "The 2nd Amendment clearly implies to the Federal Government (Since Washington DC is the jurisdiction at issue in Heller and governed by the Federal government). It's not clear yet whether the Amendment is applicable to states and cities. But the court will likely ultimately conclude that the Amendment is INCORPORATED into the meaning of due process for purposes of the 14th Amendment, and thus APPLICABLE TO THE STATES AND THEIR SUB-DIVISIONS

What the HELL are we waiting for WHERE's THE F-ING CHALLENGE!!! NRA do something we don't don't pay membeship fees for NOTHING hahah [wink]
 
Back
Top Bottom