Massachusetts is one of a handful of places across the country that refuses to recognize concealed carry permits issued by other states. In order for non-residents to legally carry, they’re supposed to obtain a “temporary” license to carry from the Massachusetts State Police; a burdensome and cumbersome process that not only requires the applicant to appear in person, but demands they “show good reason to fear injury to his person or property”; a requirement that flies in the face of the Supreme Court’s decision in Bruen.
A Massachusetts judge found the state’s licensing process to violate the Second Amendment rights of non-residents, but the local district attorney appealed his decision to the state’s highest court, and on Monday the Supreme Judicial Court heard oral arguments in the case.
The top law enforcement officials for each state are on opposite sides of the issue. New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella said in a court filing that applying Massachusetts gun laws to New Hampshire residents who cross the state border only temporarily could violate their right to bear arms.
“For New Hampshire citizens, especially those living in southern New Hampshire, such a strict application of Massachusetts’s laws means that legal, constitutionally protected conduct – namely, carrying a firearm from self-defense – can be transformed into felonious conduct during a routine trip to the grocery store, the mall, or to visit a next-door neighbor,” Formella says.
Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell also filed an amicus brief in the case, noting that she “frequently defends the Commonwealth’s firearm-safety laws against Second Amendment challenges.”
“Massachusetts applies its laws evenly to residents and non-residents alike,” she said in a statement. “Nothing in the Constitution prohibits Massachusetts law enforcement officers from enforcing state law within its own borders, simply because someone is from a different state.”
Campbell’s argument may sound good in theory, but in practice it results in the vast majority of non-residents being unable to access their Second Amendment rights once they cross the state line.
According to the non-resident LTC application, not only do applicants have to appear in-person as part of the application process, they must provide proof of completion of a Massachusetts Basic Firearms Safety Course “taken with an instructor who is certified by the Colonel of the Massachusetts State Police.” They must also “submit a photocopy of both sides of their home state license to carry firearms”, even if they live in a Constitutional Carry state like New Hampshire, where lawful gun owners can bear arms without the need for a state-issued permission slip.
So while Massachusetts may “apply its laws evenly” to both residents and non-residents, those laws impose a much larger burden on non-residents. It’s virtually impossible, for instance, for me to find an instructor in Virginia who’s been certified by the Massachusetts State Police to teach a Basic Firearms Safety Course (which itself is going to be undone by the new training mandates included in the new gun control laws set to take effect next month), so if I want to lawfully carry a pistol on me when I visit family or friends in Massachusetts, there’s no way for me to do so. And for those living in Constitutional Carry states, Massachusetts’ law is even more asinine; forcing them to first get a carry license from their own state before they can apply for a Massachusetts permit.
We don’t lose the rights protected by the First, Fourth, or Fifth Amendments when we cross the state line into states like Massachusetts or New York, so why should our Second Amendment rights be null and void when we leave the state we call home? Massachusetts may have the power to regulate (up to a point, anyway) the time, manner, and place where guns can be carried by lawful owners. Its current system for non-residents who want to bear arms, however, is an egregious abuse of authority, and one that hopefully will be struck down by the Supreme Judicial Court.
