“Police chiefs are in a very good position to make (a may-issue) determination. I understand the concern about it, but there needs to be someone that’s close to the community that can make the call.” – Former Boston police commissioner Edward F. Davis quoted in Senators pass an altered gun bill [via bostonglobe.com]
Ooh thank God there’s someone to do the thinking for me! I would have never been able to make such and potentially dangerous and life changing decision on my own.
Huh sure. I met the police chief of the two MA towns I lived in a whopping zero times. How do they know me unless I have a lot of run ins with the law? If I have no record then there is no viable reason they could say I am unsuitable to carry then they should issue a license. May issue allows police chiefs to abuse their power and deny, deny, deny, to their hearts content. It seemed like there was always somebody getting denied for no good reason when I frequented Northeast Shooters.
The new thing now is that you have to justify your request, whereas it used to be that if your record was clean you were issued a permit. Oh how times are changing…
I don’t see the problem. All you need is to be connected, or named Kennedy.
/sarc
But I thought Mitt Romney was responsible for all the gun control legislation in Mass. /sarc
Not all, but he signed quite a bit when he wasn’t too busy prototyping socialized medicine.
A fool and his money are soon parted. The constitution does not allow for that. Neither does it give the police the sole power to decide who should and should not be allowed to own a firearm.
“Voters are in a very good position to make determination. I understand the concern about it, but there needs to be someone that’s close to the community that can make the call.”
Corrected for them…
My police chief wouldn’t know me from Adam, why would he have any reason to allow or deny anything to me?
“Police chiefs are in a very good position to make (a may-issue) determination. I understand the concern about it, but there needs to be someone that’s close to the community that can make the call.” – Former Boston police commissioner Edward F. Davis
Translation:
“Police chiefs are in a very good position to demand sexual favors from women or ‘donations’ from wealthy residents in exchange for concealed carry licenses in a may-issue determination. I understand the concern about it, but police chiefs don’t want to give up milking their community.”
Maybe we should do away with juries and let the sheriff do that too, since he’s close to the community and all.
Or appointed chief, even better…
And they can probably make better decisions about who should date whom, marry whom, go to what school, work where, etc.
It’s all about power and control. Shall issue takes some of that away and makes these guys feel threatened.
Pushing law abiding people around is a lot easier than doing the job of catching real criminals and just as rewarding to him.
Unrelated, but I’d love to see a Ralph review of The Purge: Anarchy.
My former town in MA has 18,000 residents. I could not pick my chief out of a lineup of one, and vice versa. You think Davis could recognize 650,000 people? It’s a control issue, plain and simple.
Shouldn’t it work like this ? You apply for CCW. It is issued. Your conduct with it subsequently PROVES that you are worthy of exercising the privilege by your responsible behavior. Or, you screw it up by acting irresponsibly and proving you are not worthy of the privilege. CCW withdrawn, You in deep trouble, most likely.
It has been my understanding that in a society and polity of free persons, the individual has the responsibility and the freedom to prove himself/herself a morally driven, rational, law-abiding, productive member of said society and polity without interference of The State, until his/her conduct proves him/her to be otherwise. In other words, “We don’t need no stinking Public Servants to tell us what to do.”
Well, it should be simpler than that …
You buy a gun.
You carry a gun.
If you attack and/or threaten someone else with the gun, you are arrested, tried, convicted, and imprisoned … and/or someone shoots you in self-defense.
If you don’t attack and/or threaten others, life continues on as normal.
No CCW, no FOID, no begging for permission to protect oneself and one’s family. Simply the presumption of innocence until proven otherwise.
Yes, it should be THAT simple. Reality is such an inconvenient b*tch, isn’t it?
Of course police chiefs are in a good position to determine who should be allowed to legally carry a firearm. Who else could determine such important factors as race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, etc.
Oh, a jaywalking charge from 2002 – Nyet!
Oh, was caught throwing some stale bread to some birds otherwise known as “littering” – Nyet!
Oh, an NRA t-shirt. That promotes violence – Nyet!
Oh, a Chantix user. That’s a psychological pharmaceutical – Nyet!
…
He’s an elitist jerk.
Police have set themselves apart and have dissociated themselves from the community. We’re just “civilians”…
I have to keep reminding myself that this arrogant, condescending, elitist piece of ……work was appointed by a mayor elected by the people.
The people want to treated as children; as immature, irresponsible, over grown babies with diapers that need to be changed, spoon fed and chins wiped and have decisions about whether they should have tools for self-defense determined by their “betters”.
I don’t believe, by the evidence; that most people want to be free; most people in the world, it seems; want tyrants and dictators to lord it over them and to be told what to do at the point of a gun.
I believe that the true desire to be free is an aberration that has only been expressed a few times in history; our history being the most recent. There may be enough of us left to bring that back; we will see.
The aberration is people who see the only options as anarchy or dictatorship. It’s a work in progress, but we seem generally to have landed in a comfortable compromise between personal freedom and what’s best for society. I really like this country.
Well lizzrd; I love this country as well. and right now we fit the definition of a totalitarian police state. If the definition is an American citizen being arrested and denied habeous corpus; denied the right to faced with your accusers, to see the evidence against you, to be held indefinitely for the “duration of hostilities” that Bush younger said could last a hundred years.
The forcing to buy a product, (health insurance) or be charged what will in a couple of years be huge fines, Asset forfeiture where all of your property, bank accounts and home can be seized and then you have to go to court without money from your seized bank accounts to prove your innocence.
No knock warrants where armed gangs of men invade a house of someone that is innocent, (because they have not been charged with a crime, the raid is a fishing expedition to hopefully gather enough evidence to charge the resident with a crime). If the resident, not sure if the gang are cops or criminals dressed as cops, can either defend themselves and be murdered by ,the “lawful” invaders or be killed by the criminals after he lays down any weapons he might have to defend himself.
Strip searched at the airport; all rights to privacy taken away, judged guilty until proven innocent.
No lizzrd; most of our civil liberties have been taken from us, we in fact, by most definitions, are in a totalitarian police state right now; most of us just have not been targeted by the police state apparatus that would show this to be the fact. Yet.
I’m afraid you’re on to something, TR. In fact, I reached the same conclusion when the Obamacare “individual mandate” was upheld.
ThomasR, you are spot on! The last 2000 years of European history, as I know it, prove you right.
‘He said he was concerned that the provision might violate the US Constitution’s Second Amendment and could have landed the antigun violence measure in court.’
I almost fell out of my chair when I read that, I was laughing so hard.
Yes. Just a little Freudian slip there. The way it reads without the hyphen is uncomfortably close to the truth.
I think they meant “anti gun-violence measure.”
Alright, but to ensure fairness and impartiality, we need to have some controls on that process. So here’s my proposal. Nobody who’s ever expressed an anti-Second Amendment opinion (NSA can provide that information) can be allowed to exercise this judgment. Only 2A advocates can, since we can trust that they’ll make their determination unencumbered by a general reluctance to issue.
“Police chiefs close to the community”?
Boston ain’t Mayberry.
I’d like to know if he’d be willing to leave his uniform, badge, and gun at home and spend a month living in a high crime neighborhood by himself. And I don’t mean holed up in a hotel ordering room service, I mean going out and walking the streets all day, every day. I wonder how safe that would make him feel.
Every time a state government further infringes on the Constitutional rights of their citizens, they all of sudden become a “model” for the rest of the nation {rolls eyes}.
And Bull Connor was in a great position to make the calls on freedoms of speech, assembly and petition of redress of grievances in Birmingham.
One day, and soon, monsters like this fellow, sheltering statist ambitions, will come to be regarded less as kindly and old, if passe and paternalistic, irrelevancies, and more as hollow men whose hubris and neglect allowed history’s horrors to repeat themselves.
First: shall not be infringed.
Second: why are police chiefs appointed instead of elected? And why aren’t they under the jurisdiction of the constitutional law officer: the county sheriff?
Because Sheriffs are elected. They’re the highest law enforcement authority in the county. A Sheriff is a _very_ important elected position.
The Police Chief is “close to the community”? That’s a joke! I live in a small suburban community and I’ve never laid eyes on the Chief, even when I’ve gone to the station. Given that he has no clue who I am, how the hell can he judge my competence to possess a firearm?
If police chiefs don’t have the authority to give out permits on a may-issue basis, how else are they going to get all that baksheesh from their wealthy or connected constituents? I think that’s what he means by saying they are “close to the community.” They are closer to some than to others. Much, much closer.
Makes sense to me. The subtext of his message is pretty clear: “Just make sure you donate to my campaign fund and I’ll make sure you get your permit”. Probably $100 bucks should do it, although you might get by with $50 if your town is relatively small.
So my politically connected neighbor is a gun grabber grade school teacher, she and I have a few words and now she is a on a anti gun neighbor crusade, doesn’t sound like someone in that scenario will get a fair shake in that town…
Just a what if…
I’ve met dozens of police chiefs. Most were politicans in uniform who didn’t know jack sh!t about freedom or tactics. They wouldn’t hesitate, for a moment, to accept a donation or a gift, though. So if you think that suitability to carry a firearm has anything to do with wealth, status, or expensive gifts, then you are already incompetent to make a rational decision. That’s not even a good way to vote for a prom queen, much less decisions regarding personal safety.
I have a kind of obsessive question, pounding in my head every single time I hear about gun control:
How a citizen can be considered as responsible to exercise his/her’s right to vote, vote that can decide at least over some years of many people lives, vote that can decide for the future years of a candidate life, vote that can tip the balance in some direction for an entire nation, sometimes for generations to come, but it is deemed as not responsible, by default, in matters with far less social impact that the vote?
Unless one has weapons of mass destruction, then no other weapon, no firearm, can have a bigger impact at social scale than the vote.
Yet, the right to vote is there for all, and is forbidden to extremely few citizens and only in very special circumstances, with a very low occurrence in any given society.
How can a state recognize the capacity of it’s citizens to vote, while being reluctant regarding citizens rights and responsibility in far lesser matters, like firearms?
It just doesn’t make sense to me. If one is deemed as being able to vote, then one is able to be responsible in a lesser(from the social scale standpoint of view) responsibility, like firearms.
+1 – ^^^^This!
I am a resident of Lowell Ma. Ed Davis was the chief of police 4 chiefs ago. His standards for suitability are still in affect. Each intervening chief has kept this policy in place, with no other reason than it is how things have always been done. Recently the GUN OWERS ACTION LEAGE ( GOAL ) Held a meeting with the curent cheif. The following is what I have sent him as a follow up to that meeting. I have not recieved a reply at this point.I would like to start off by trying to establish if we have common ground, as this would be a positive way to move forward towards having this dialogue. I believe people have a natural right to defend their family and themselves. Do you agree with this sentiment?My hope is that you do agree with me on the above. However, if you do not, the ground work for the arguments that I will be presenting would not change. I believe, because it is the law that the Police have the duty to protect public safety, and because of court rulings that the police do not have a duty to protect me from third party harm; therefore the right of self-defence is my own. I do not say this to be inflammatory or confrontational, but because it is settled law. I was not able to attend the meeting that you had with GOAL on Friday 03/28/2014, but I wish that I had been able to. I believe the following is an accurate list of concerns that chief Taylor and others articulated during the meeting. “I do not carry so why should you want to” In my opinion, this almost answers itself. With this statement, you declare a choice which you have made as a free person. I on the other hand have decided to make a different choice for my-self and my family. I believe that my right to defend myself does not end at the door of my home. If anything, the risk that I may face increases once I step outside. As it is my right to defend myself, and due to the increased risk, I would think it would be a reasonable decision to carry.“I am charged with upholding the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and defending the constitution.” The law in Massachusetts states that the chief of police has the discretion to issue licenses to carry (LTC). Not issuing an LTC is your opinion and not the law. Regarding defending the constitution, the second amendment of the U.S Constitution in part states that “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”. The Massachusetts constitution in The First Part Article 1 states in part “That All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights; among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties.” In my opinion, there appears to be a fundamental contradiction between your statement and your actions. “We issue restricted permits to people that we do not expect trouble from, we do not issue an unrestricted license to the same person because they may cause trouble.” I do not believe this to be a verbatim quote, but I believe that the above statement is accurate in spirit. If I understand the above properly, you are expressing that you are trusting people that obey the law when you issue them an LTC. However, once they request the ability to legally exercise their rights by having the arbitrary restrictions removed, this also creates a risk that they may become a criminal. This appears counter intuitive. Through your actions, you are creating an arbitrary class of citizens that in your opinion have a greater need or claim on their constitutional rights. I have heard that the rebuttal to this position is that your criteria is not arbitrary, but is fairly and evenly enforced. Please permit me to review that criteria as I understand it. The only people that you consider worthy or fit to be granted an unrestricted class A LTC are Police officers, Business owners and victims of a violent crime. Granted, police officers may be a target of retaliation due to their job, but from what I am lead to believe from your statements that you do not carry off of the job, it appears that you do not believe this to be true. Alternatively, maybe it is that police have more training. I cannot believe that could be a consideration, since in comparison, the other two categories have no special training requirements associated with them.Regarding the business owner, each of us have goods or personal property that are of considerable value. The most valuable possession that we have is our lives. When a business owner is robbed, he is not robbed by a super class of criminal, or by a criminal that is more dangerous. The business owner would be robbed by the same class of criminal that would rob me. However, you say I do not have the right, or do not need to defend myself from such a threat, while the business owner is entitled to do so. Regarding the victim, I would really appreciate an opportunity to talk with you in person about this one. The concept is a bit challenging for me to understand, but it seems that you bar people from defending themselves. However, after one is attacked, you will now grant them the means to defend themselves. Would an attack on one’s person really be needed for one to be granted the means to defend themselves?“Being armed does not deter rapes.” Just being armed will not deter crime, but in my opinion, knowing how to use my firearm in a safe and responsible manor will deter crime. For example, consider a woman who is legally and for all lawful purposes caring her fire arm. This woman is approached by a man who has intent to rape her. The woman simply states “Please back away; I have a firearm and will use it if need be.” Assume that the man doesn’t retreat. The woman can simply shows her firearm, and repeat that she does not want to use it, but will if she feels her life is in danger. If the man does not cease his approach and retreat, the woman can warn him a third time, and can pull the firearm safety to deter the threat of the rapist. My opinion is that it would not go this far before the rapist retreated; simply telling someone you have a firearm will make them retreat in the vast majority of cases. “This is the policy of the past 4 chiefs so I see no reason to change it.”Just because something is from the past and has been used by others, does not make right at the time. If we follow this logic, “because the last 4 did it I will too,” we would not have any innovations; our technology would still rely on horses, instead of horse-power in my car. One could respond with, “well, it worked.” I would question to whose standards did it work? As a citizen of Lowell, Ma I do believe that over the past years, we were stripped of our right to carry, while there was crime was not only occurring, but rising. I believe that it is time for a change. It appears to me that you are moving to more of a community policing model. Why not try un-restricting LTC with further education? One would think this would be beneficial to all, since we are talking about un-restricting an LTC for only those who wish to legally carry a firearm, and are law abiding. Further, you don’t know if something will work until you try it. “A hand gun would have been of no good against an AR-15”Most of the shootings that have involved an AR style rifle have occurred in “gun free zones.” Only when an armed citizen or police have been in the immediate vicinity, have large numbers of injuries been averted. A case in point is the mall shooting in Clackamas. In almost all of these cases when the shooter is confronted, they cease shooting others, and kill themselves.In closing I would like to acknowledge that I am using an anonymous e-mail address. Why ? At the meeting it was alluded to that any one that made to strong of an argument could be retaliated against. I do not feel that I have insulted you or said any thing beyond what would be said in a normal conversation. Thank you for your time and attention.
You’re not holding your breath, are you?
No I am not. Chief tailor is one of the old guard that was one of Ed Davis’s contemporaries. So he thinks like him and is impervious to facts not of his making. I wanted to show that the ghost of Davis still runs the department.
I was reading an article written by a conservative, Devvy Kid. She made a point that has bothered me…. So many conservatives defend 2a rights tooth and nail, but snoozed while much of the remaining Bill of Rights was shredded in the name of the security state. Where is the consistency?
Good point. I think we all realize to some degree that once the 2A goes they all go but the 2A is special because it is the only one that deals with something tangible and being tangible it can be physically taken from you. As for the other nine the argument is often that national security takes precedence. The requirement the people should always put on the government is to provide national security that complies with the Bill of Rights.
Another sticking point with all the pro-war, pro security-state folks is that while we all support our military fighting for our freedom(allegedly), but what are we doing in return….giving up those rights without a whimper here at home and letting our military fight and sometimes perish in vain?
Terrorism caused that.
It’s hard to support gun control in the name of fighting a foreign enemy, but when people get afraid they make idiotic decisions.
He is an OFWSG. S is for stupid. Or sh** for brains.
The guy needs a personal trainer and a tailor. He also needs to stay out of my life.
Wasn’t sure where in the constitution it gives police chiefs the authority to grant or not grant portions of the Bill of Rights to US citizens? Anybody know?
Paco above wrote, “So many conservatives defend 2a rights tooth and nail, but snoozed while much of the remaining Bill of Rights was shredded in the name of the security state. Where is the consistency?”
Excellent observation and question, Paco. The only answer I’ve ever come up with, and I’m sure it’s insufficient, is that people really are more similar than we give them credit for, or rather, are willing to blame them for.
Many among both antis and gunners are willing to forfeit other people’s rights to preserve their own rights, or at least to preserve their own sense of righteousness. Many among both groups think they’re on the side of angels, they’re on the right side of history, they’re fighting the good fight, etc. Fundamentally, and to the detriment of each side’s claim to moral superiority, they think they’re the good guys. So, in their view, what does it really matter what happens to “they”, “them”, “the other guys”: the bad guys? After all, they have it coming, don’t they? Well.
Antis consider themselves so good, that they’re above in principle and practice the riffraff and rabble whose lives and lifestyles involve firearms. They aren’t Wolverine wannabes, they aren’t counterfeit cops, they aren’t revolutionaries or counterrevolutionaries, they aren’t militia members, they aren’t anarchists, they aren’t fetishists, separatists, supremacists, survivalists or conspiracy theorists.
So who the hell cares what happens to them and their so-called Second Amendment rights? It’s an expendable amendment relied upon by undesirable people, and society would be better off without either one. As long as the antis get to practice legitimate and useful rights like free speech, free press, free assembly and freedom of religion, you know, the biggies, then the rest is just so much antiquated historical trivia like letters of marque and reprisal.
Meanwhile, many gunners (deep down, where it exists, not superficially where the urge to deny it does) adhere to a nearly identical selfish principle. They pat themselves on the back as being lawful, law abiding, mentally stable, never having hurt anyone, having no desire to go on a spree shooting, and always practicing safe firearm handling habits as evidenced by their years/decades of neither incurring nor inflicting any injuries. They aren’t gangbangers, drug users, drug dealers, rum runners, scam artists, wife beaters, theft ringleaders, or alcohol abusers. The police aren’t ever going to target them at all, let alone extraconstitutionally, as they do the riffraff and rabble whose lives and lifestyles involve criminal activity.
So who the hell cares what happens to them and their so-called Fourth Amendment rights? It’s an expendable amendment relied upon by undesirable people, and society would be better off without either one. As long as the gunners get to practice legitimate and useful rights like that of keeping and bearing arms, you know, the big one, then the rest is just so much antiquated historical trivia like quartering of soldiers in houses in peacetime without the consent of the owner.
It comes down to each side considering themselves the moral compass of society. Whether one side makes a stronger case for holding that title (and one side most certainly does), itself becomes a less relevant curiosity as both sides are strangely oblivious to, or even comfortable with, the blatant immorality committed in their names, but outside their view.
Great reply, and likely true. I do have another possible explanation though, as it’s not flattering; both groups have been hopelessly duped by the ruling elite to buy into the the false left- right paradigm, thereby consenting to give up their rights regardless which puppets are on the podium.
I think you’re right, Paco.
We’re so caught up in the showmanship among the two brand names of the same career politician ruling class, that not enough of us challenge when we’re told to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
How about you shut up lard a*s. Just because you think your sh*t don’t stink doesn’t mean your not an ass*ole. You know who is close to the community? The people that make up a community and not some uber elitist d-bag that you see in the mirror every day.
I missed that part in the Constitution where police chiefs give the final go ahead on the 2nd , maybe doughboy there could enlighten me a bit.
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