The Second Amendment notwithstanding, it appears that some pretty serious infringement is under consideration in Massachusetts, right-to-bear-arms-wise. Boston.com reports (my emphasis):
More than a year after the school shootings in Newtown, Conn., a panel of academic experts today released a long-awaited report recommending that Massachusetts tighten its gun laws, which are already considered among the toughest in the country.
The panel made 44 recommendations, including that Massachusetts join a national mental health database for screening potential gun owners, that it beef up firearms training requirements, and that it eliminate Class B gun licenses, which are seldom used.
It recommended that the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association help define a series of factors that could be used to prohibit “unsuitable persons’ from acquiring firearms. The panel said the current process allows local law enforcement officials too much discretion to determine whether a person is suitable to be granted a license to carry.
It also said Massachusetts should require anyone wanting to purchase a hunting rifle or a shotgun to pass those standards of suitability. That could allow local police chiefs to deny gun purchases to people who have been arrested, but not convicted, of a crime.
Charles C. W. Cooke tweeted:
In other words, MA wants to deny a constitutional right to anyone who the state has accused of doing something wrong.
In other words:
1) You annoy the State.
2) The State arrests you, on charges that it knows it cannot prove.
3) You can now be legally and permanently disarmed.
Even in these dark days, it startles me that a “panel of academic experts” (i.e. statist Eloi hoplophobes) could issue, without fear of inciting widespread rebellion, such a breathtakingly audacious insult to the liberty of the people of Massachusetts, and to the Constitution that supposedly guarantees their most basic rights. (I should know better by now; things are moving very fast these days.)
Keep your powder dry, people.
2 Comments
Another step on the road to anarcho-tyranny.
“Legally disarmed” does not equal disarmed.
I carried for years before Oregon went to “must issue” CCW permits.