The Second Amendment Law Center has filed an amicus brief in the case of Commonwealth v. Donnell, a criminal matter in Massachusetts state court that represents a chance to score a major victory for nonresident carry rights. The brief was joined by several other groups, including the California Rifle & Pistol Association, Gun Owners of America, Inc., Gun Owners of California, Inc., Gun Owners Foundation, Operation Blazing Sword, Inc., Second Amendment Defense and Education Coalition, Ltd., and Federal Firearms Licensees of Illinois, Inc. We filed the brief with the assistance of the Law Office of Jason A. Guida, who serves as local counsel for us on this matter. We encourage Massachusetts residents to contact him with their firearms law and rights restoration needs: https://lawguida.com/.
The defendant in the matter, New Hampshire resident Dean Donnell, was charged with carrying a firearm without a license in Massachusetts. Donnell brought a motion to dismiss arguing the Massachusetts law barring carry without a license is unconstitutional at least as applied to him.
The trial court granted Donnell’s motion, ruling that “a law-abiding resident of New Hampshire who is exercising his Constitutional right should not become a felon by exercising that right while he is traveling through Massachusetts merely because he has not obtained a Massachusetts license to carry…This Court can think of no other constitutional right which a person loses simply by traveling beyond his home state’s border…”
The State appealed, and in a rare move, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (the State’s highest court) opted to take the case directly instead of having it go through a usual appeals process. Then, earlier this year, the Court asked explicitly for amicus briefs, and the Second Amendment Law Center has answered the call.
Our brief lays out the reasons why the trial court got it exactly right, and also illustrates how the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in the Rahimi case further vindicates the lower court’s ruling. We also point out a critical oversight in Massachusetts’ record of historical laws: the State’s briefs did not acknowledge that the concealed carry restrictions it cited from the 19th century specifically exempted travelers.
Finally, the 2ALC brief responds to the public policy arguments made by antigun groups in a separate amicus brief by pointing out both that New Hampshire, with less restrictive laws, is safer than Massachusetts, and that Americans who legally carry firearms are overwhelmingly peaceable and rarely commit violent crimes.
The out-of-state resident public carry issue is important and is a central issue in other cases around the country, including the California case of CRPA v. LA Sheriff’s Department, brought by our friends at the California Rifle & Pistol Association.
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