“Massachusetts saw a spike in the number of its highest capacity gun licenses last year,” bostonglobe.com reports, “despite the passage of a sweeping gun control bill that aimed to make the state’s already strict gun laws even tighter.” Yup. Writer Catherine Cloutier assumes that Americans exercising their natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms is a bad thing. And that laws that that infringe upon that right should lead to less citizens keeping and bearing arms. Admittedly, that is the point. But once again, the law of unintended consequences – the principle which elevated President Obama to Gun Salesman of the Decade – apply in The Bay State. Here’s how that went down . . .
To get a Class A license, applicants must pass a background check and get approval from their community’s licensor, often the chief of police. New applicants must provide proof of firearm safety training. Even then, firearm licenses need to be renewed every six years.
Until August, a person who was denied a license for a handgun could still obtain a Firearm Identification Card without passing all these checks. That card allowed the carrier to possess and transport a rifle or shotgun but prohibited them from carrying a concealed firearm or having a handgun.
The August gun legislation changed the licensing requirements for the Firearm Identification Card to match those of the Class A license, making obtaining a Firearm Identification Card dependent on police chief approval . . .
Now that the standard for the two types of licenses is the same, more gun license applicants, including former Firearm Identification Card holders, are opting for the higher permit, which carries the same cost and background checks of the lesser permit, said Sampson. And organizations like the Gun Owners’ Action League, or GOAL, encourage their members and trainees to opt for the Class A license, said Jim Wallace, GOAL’s executive director.
And the survey said!
All but five of Massachusetts’ 351 towns and cities saw increases in the number of active Class A licenses between 2013 and 2014, according to a Globe analysis of the state’s Firearms Records Bureau data . . .
The spike followed steady annual increases in Class A licenses statewide over the past several years. Since 2008, the number of these licenses has grown in all but two Massachusetts municipalities. In 11 communities, including Boston, the number has more than doubled.
Just imagine what that “spike” would look like if Massachusetts – the scene of the British gun grab which led to the founding of the United States – had Constitutional Carry.
Then keep imagining, because the odds of that happening are about as high as the odds that the Boston Globe’s elitist, patrician owners would publish a pro-gun editorial. Any pro-gun editorial. Intentionally, I mean.
Massachusetts can’t suck enough. I was born and raised in that misbegotten liberal hellhole, and managed to escape to AZ in 1995. Best move I ever made.
I’m here on the Cape for the duration but at least I have a Class A and FFL to ease the pain.
I had the good fortune to be born in AZ and have lived here my entire life which is why living under the gun laws in so many other states would be like landing on an alien planet to me. I have the enviable position of being able to look at Texas and think to myself “man, they’re gun laws are too restrictive”.
What do you have that we don’t? Constitutional carry and outright reciprocity? So it’s one advantage that a tiny fraction even take advantage of and which may be tactically imprudent, anyway, and another advantage which applies to out-of-staters? Meh.
There may be a few other AZ advantages, like being able to carry in a bar…concealed…with a license..provided there’s no proper no-guns sign posted. On second thought, that’s another meh.
The process of getting a concealed carry permit in TX seems a bit involved, but overall, it takes someone who hasn’t lived on the East Coast to see Texas as an anti-gun state. I find open carry in AZ most charming, and it is not unimportant, but that doesn’t make Texas an anti-gun state. Actually, Texas has one difference with AZ, no voter-initiated ballot initiatives, if I am not mistaken. This may prove important in the next few years.
You are not mixing up constitutional carry and open carry, by the way? Being able to carry concealed without a permit is not a minor issue. That still doesn’t make Texas and anti-gun state, of course, but constitutional carry is a significant recent change in AZ.
I believe that’s the first time I’ve heard a gun rights supporter call Constitutional Carry “meh”. Not having to buy a permission slip from idiot bureaucrats to do what I have an innate right to do isn’t “meh” to me.
Well the state officials ahould be happy about that. They’ll be able to hire a bunch of people to clean up all that “blood in the streets” they have been predicting.
.
See? It IS a good thing!
.
Congrats. For a nominal fee, your representatives have temporarily granted you special permission to exercise a God-given ‘right’.
You may now throw yourself off a cliff.
That’s almost exactly what happened with my wife: she wanted to get a card so she could take her Dad’s .22 to the range. I outlined what her options were, and she asked: “So they cost the same and they both need the same checks, but one of them gives me more options than the rest?”
Yes, said I.
“Then why would I bother getting one that gives me fewer options?”
That would be a very good question, said I. Net result: now my wife has a Class A LTC.
Of course, the author screwed it up, as the MSM always does. While the FID — for traditional shotties and rifles, not “hi capacity” long guns — was “shall issue,” CLEOs often blocked them.
If Massachusetts didn’t need Smith & Wesson to keep Springfield from sliding into it’s municipal sewer system, I hate to think where MA gun owners would be now.
Both towns where I’ve lived in MA were de facto shall issue, thanks to their CLEOs. I chose carefully and avoided Boston like the plague that it is.
You mean Springfield hasn’t already?
Two things are keeping Springfield afloat — S&W and the possibility of a casino, as recently approved by the voters.
Don’t forget Six Flags! I’m sure it has a great economic impact when the weather is actually nice enough to go.
I’m looking forward to the new Fallout game that takes place in Boston. I’m sure their strict gun laws will result in an uneventful and peaceful apocalyptic rpg experience.
Right, like how guns were impossible to find in the Washington D.C. wasteland of fallout 3. The super mutants had to kill you with hugs.
Its time all the gun owners refuse to renew and file a class action for violation of their rights. The concept of asking for permission and paying a fee for a right you already have just seems to be the epitome of stupidity to me. If requiring a license to own a firearm is legal then the same law could be used to exercise any other rights guaranteed by the constitution. Don’t have a permit to stop unreasonable search, to bad we are searching. Want to speak out about something to anyone, show me your permit. Want to go to church? Well get a permit first. If told to testify against yourself you must unless you have paid $500 a year for a class A permit to claim the 5th.
It’s no different than a poll tax.
Knock yourself out, but just like NJ, MA has their courts stacked with anti 2A liberals. You would have to go to the US Sup. Court to get anything changed.
Massachusetts, just run away…
Massiveflush*ts.
^I fixed that for you.
If the dead could talk, I imagine many requests from revolutionary war soldiers to be buried in another state! The “Freedom Trail” in Boston should lead to Logan Airport!
OK, I guess my question would be has the combined number of FIDs and LTCs increased or decreased since the change? My guess would be that it has increased, or the Globe would be gleefully reporting on the total decrease in firearms permission slips. But I could be wrong.
TAXachusetts. It’s TAXachusetts, people!
Oh, I thought it was Moscowchusetts.
Ha Ha My sister in Mass. pays $2k a year in property taxes for a home that would be $10k in NJ.
I just call the people from there Mass-holes
Heyyyyy!
So what is a High Capacity license? Is it like those dangerous High Capacity Clips and rifles? Do you think that they have Military Grade License too?
A high capacity license is an infringement that does not allow you to own the same AK which a 10 year old girl has in Jihadistan, even though she isn’t protected by an enumerated right which states her 2A right shall not be infringed by her government.
What socialists fear most, is an armed citizenry. They are trying, and succeeding in many cases, to take over the big cities first. Control them and then spread out from there. They might, instead, find themselves under siege from a citizenry that has no intention of being controlled by tyranny. They may even have to deal with revolt from within, once the food, water, and power quit coming in.
Immediately after the putsch of November 1917 (later rebranded the Glorious October Revolution) the Bolsheviks controlled St. Petersburg and Moscow. They pretty much didn’t control any other parts of Russia.
After a long and bloody civil war, it turned out, it was enough.
Prior to that, the rural serfs were still subjugated to the royal urban elite, so their resistance was already very limited. Luckily, the US system at this time does not support quite as much of an imbalance, so any city-state would rapidly find itself isolated, alone, and would moderate to regain access to resources. I hope we solve this riddle peacefully, since city-states are the only logical solution to the growing power imbalance between states’ rural and megalopolis areas.
Give Massachusetts back to England.
At this point, I’m not sure even England would want it back.
“New England, you’re going back to old England!”
– Independent Presidential candidate Duke Phillips in “The Critic”
Just be sure ME. is not included! !!
Don’t many police chiefs limit the class A licenses to sporting uses?
Dave,
Any variation on the LTC can be restricted to target, hunting, employment, days ending in “g”, whatever. MA chiefs, or their designee, can pretty much do (or not do) what they want.
Then why is the Boston Globe article so exercised over the class A licenses? It’s not like every new class A license means an unrestricted class A license. One can only hope that some of them are.
Actually, I would hope that NONE of the A’s are restricted. The very fact that you, as Tom Gresham says, have to ask “Mother, may I?” means that owning and carrying a firearm is a privilege, not a right. Besides, MA is “may issue”, each chief can make their own rules, and the SJC doesn’t recognize Heller and McDonald, so screw the bumpkins (us).
But we can bet that many of these new class A licenses are restricted, especially given that the article says their number has grown even in Boston. This is not how things should be, but this is MA, so we can be pretty certain that this is how things are.
I was just saying that the article talks about the new class A licenses without discussing how many of them are restricted, and without that information one doesn’t get a complete picture of the changes that have been taking place since the new law took effect in MA.
“The map excludes the 12 towns that had less than 100 licenses in 2014.”
She can’t even get her English right: it should be fewer licenses.
I’m looking forward to leaving.
Repeat after me: owah tanass iyam.
With so many other states to choose from, why stay. I grew up in Salem, came to visit the Southwest for a few weeks, been here over 30 years. Living in MA is like a continuous prostate check.
Heck, there are better states right there in New England, if for some reason you just love crappy weather.
There are no good states in the New England area. That whole region offers essentially zero to this country, no manufacturing, no agriculture,they just tax tax tax, work in offices, and try and screw up the rest of the country.
I was pissed when I had to move to MA and apply for permission to own guns I’ve owned for years. Luckily I had a CLEO who signed off on my LTC A. Even then I was too scared to carry in the state.
I’m fairly lucky: The CLEO in my town happily signs off on applications, even if the reason is “because I fucking want one”. True story.
Of course, I live well south of Boston. I’m not sure how it gets up there.
Hehe, check out the newer requirements for non-resident Class A “All Lawful Purposes” permit: big $$$$$$$ to get one AND you must show up for a personal interview with a bureaucrat on a DAY AND AT A TIME specified by said bureaucrat. The one upside of non-resident, Class A ALP’s – a temporary license to carry concealed – is that it is issued by the State Police taking the issuance was out of the hands of anti-gun CLEO’s. At least that was my experience in the dozen or so years that I applied and was issued one before the expense and the “ya gotta show up in person” requirements were put in place. SIGH
Anthony, Thanks for the scoop on the non-resident deal. I’m looking at moving to NH and was wondering what the process was. I had already heard that it’s the same $100 fee, but it’s only good for 1 year. 8~(
I’m still here because…well, jobs…..and I will not argue with any statement here, but there are small bright spots…..one; GOAL…Gun Owners Action League. Two; Comm2A…Commonwealth Second Amendment Inc. both fight the RIGHT for the right…..Mass does suck, but it’s where I am now for at least a few more years.
I just finished the Glob [yes, that is misspelled on purpose) article. Did she get anything right?
“…Class A…allows broader powers to carry concealed handguns…”. It’s the ONLY permit that “allows” (good word choice, if only accidentally) CC. The recently departed Class B did not allow ANY sort of CC anywhere. It’s still called a “License To Carry” but it ain’t.
And later: “…the Class A carries several extra permissions with it, including more flexible rules for carrying…”. See above. It does “allow” you to buy a firearm that can ACCEPT a magazine that holds more than 10 rounds. With the ol’ Class B, my son couldn’t buy a Beretta 92 that was in the state prior to 1998 because he COULD fit a full-capacity magazine in it. (So he got a Sig P239.)
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