BELLEVUE, WA – Aug. 15, 2024– The Second Modification Basis and Nationwide Rifle Affiliation have filed an amicus transient with the Massachusetts Supreme Courtroom in assist of a New Hampshire man who’s difficult the Massachusetts allow legislation.
SAF and NRA are represented by attorneys Adam Kraut with SAF in Bellevue, Wash., Joseph G.S. Greenlee and Erin M. Erhardt with NRA in Fairfax, Va., and Edward F. George, Jr., at Edward George & Associates in Arlington, Mass.
The case entails New Hampshire resident Dean F. Donnell, Jr., who was stopped by police in Massachusetts and charged for carrying a firearm and not using a license. Of their 38-page transient, SAF and NRA clarify their curiosity as that of their members’ means to journey with firearms legally throughout state traces, to make use of them for lawful functions.
“There isn’t any historic custom that justifies the non-resident licensing scheme now in place within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,” stated SAF founder and Govt Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “Trying again, a authorities license has not been required to train the proper to hold arms. Such licenses got here into existence solely within the late nineteenth Century, they usually utilized solely to the hid carry of firearms. Open carry was unrestricted.”
“Our transient,” defined Kraut, who can be SAF’s govt director, “discusses how there have been usually exemptions for these touring from being topic to the identical restrictions as residents of a specific state. We notice how the licensing scheme in Massachusetts is unduly prejudiced towards nonresidents. New nonresident license functions require an in-person appointment in Massachusetts, necessitating an additional (unarmed) journey to the Commonwealth—which, particularly for residents of distant states, turns into a barrier to entry which may be financially untenable.”