By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
A federal lawsuit challenging the process in Massachusetts for non-residents to obtain a license to carry has been filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts by two gun rights organizations and three individuals.
The 41-page federal complaint was filed by attorneys representing the Second Amendment Foundation, Gun Owners Action League (GOAL) and three private citizens, Russell Lawson, Jr., Brian Burns and Christopher Penta. They are represented by attorneys Jason A. Guida of Woburn, Mass., and Raymond M. DiGuiseppe of Southport, N.C.
Defendants are listed as Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell, Terrence M. Reidy, secretary of the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security; Massachusetts State Police Supt. Geoffrey D. Noble and Jamison R. Gagnon, commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Criminal Justice Information Services.
According to a SAF news release, “The process of acquiring and maintaining a Massachusetts non-resident permit is wrought with burden, cost and delay. The initial permit application process often takes six months or more and includes repeated mandatory in-person visits to the commonwealth, creating an unconstitutional barrier to an applicant’s right to carry for self-defense. To add insult to constitutional injury, Massachusetts non-resident permits are only good for one year (while in-state permits are good for 6 years), requiring permit holders to file their renewals every year mere months after having received their permit, as the renewal process is plagued by the very same unconstitutional delays and the challenged laws provide no grace period for expired permits that are pending renewal.”
In their complaint, plaintiffs noted, “Situations like this are not tolerated with other constitutional rights. In the free speech context, an individual ‘faced with such an unconstitutional licensing law may ignore it and engage with impunity in the exercise of the right of free expression for which the law purports to require a license.’”
Later in the lawsuit, the plaintiffs also observe, “No historical precedent—much less an enduring “tradition” with roots at the Founding—exists for constraining and restraining the free exercise of rights through a licensing scheme like that of the Commonwealth, which not only conditions the right to keep and bear arms on strict compliance with the scheme—as if the exercise of this right is a matter of legislative grace—but which then subjects renewal applicants to inordinate delays in both obtaining and maintaining the license.”
SAF is currently involved in almost 60 different legal actions around the country, and has partnered in the past with GOAL.
GOAL is an affiliate of SAF’s sister organization, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
“We proved it in California, and we’ll prove it in Massachusetts – you cannot force someone to give up their Second Amendment rights because they cross a state line,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “The Second Amendment applies to all Americans in all states, period. With this lawsuit we aim to restore the right to keep and bear arms for everyone who wants to travel to Massachusetts, and we look forward to showing why this law is in clear violation of the Second Amendment.”
“Thanks to the Massachusetts permitting regime, non-residents who travel to – or even through – the state for business or vacation must follow the extremely long permit process or risk arrest and prosecution,” SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut added. “The Second and Fourteenth Amendments clearly protect the right of ‘ordinary, law-abiding citizens’ to carry handguns for self-defense, and the state is violating the constitutional rights of non-residents with such a burdensome process to receive and renew a license to carry.”
