From the files of local lawyer John Calcagni:

“An Army Veteran was recently discharged from the 82nd Airborne Division for medical reasons and relocated from his home state of North Carolina to Massachusetts. Prior to being discharged, he befriended a fellow soldier stationed with him at Fort Bragg, North Carolina and also pending discharge. This Army buddy was originally from Massachusetts . . .

After their respective discharges, the veteran and his friend agreed to live together in Massachusetts. Once officially discharged from the Army, the veteran packed up his personal belongings and relocated from North Carolina to Massachusetts.

Among his belongings were multiple hunting knives; a handgun; several hunting rifles; and thousands of rounds of ammunition for these weapons.

The veteran brought these items to Massachusetts and into apartment where he planned to live with his former Army buddy. After settling in, the veteran loaded each weapon and placed them about the apartment in varying rooms and locations. Soon thereafter, the veteran and his Army buddy had a disagreement over household living expenses.

The disagreement escalated into a verbal argument and then became physical. According to the Army friend, the veteran unholstered a loaded pistol that he wore on his hip around the apartment and pointed it at the friend in a threatening manner.

Based on this allegation, the friend contacted the police. Multiple patrol and swat team officers arrived on scene and swarmed the apartment. The veteran was placed under arrest without incident. However, a subsequent search of the apartment by police led to the discovery of his many weapons, to include the aforementioned guns.

As a result, the veteran was then charged with multiple counts of unlicensed possession of a firearm and ammunition. The veteran and his family retained Attorney Calcagni, also an active duty Army veteran and U.S. Army Reserves Officer, to defend him against these charges. Attorney Calcagni filed a motion to dismiss the charges on grounds that no probable cause existed to support them.

Though the veteran possessed several weapons and related ammunition without having a license, he was not required by law to have such a license. Under state law, the veteran who was then a new resident to Massachusetts was exempt for a period of sixty (60) days from having a license to possess firearms and/or ammunition.

Based upon these indisputable facts, Attorney Calcagni successfully convinced both the Court and District Attorney’s Office to dismiss these charges. Congratulations to this Army veteran.”

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13 COMMENTS

  1. *My Cousin’s kid is now a Major in the 82nd.
    He has been regurgitated over and over in Iraq and Afghanistan.
    I would imagine the veteran has had the same experience and I would suppose he is a little edgy.
    I just hope the veteran gets out of MA, and gets his life back together.

  2. My late father served in the 325th GIR of the 82nd from France to Berlin. In Berlin and the parade in NYC he was a member of the Honor Guard. He later served with the 10th, 5th and 1st SF Groups, retired a Sargent Major in ’63. Massachusetts is no longer a place of Liberty. The Adams brothers spin in their graves. Romney worries me……. but less than the alternative. 

  3. *Did Heller v DC and McDonald v Chicago allow for identification for having a firearm in the home? Its good they won this case in Mass, but even after the 60 days, why would there need to be a license to having a firearm in the home.

    Isn’t that what the anti-gunner are fighting anyway? That Heller only allows for firearms for defense of the home?

    • First, the veteran was never denied the use of a gun. Far from it — he was given sixty days to make his permit application. It’s completely different from Heller or McDonald.

      Heller involved DC’s requirement that a gun in the home had to be broken down so as to render it inoperable. In McDonald, Chicago had banned guns in the home and would issue no license. In neither case did the Court never strike down licensing requirements.

      MA offers two types of handgun licenses. One is an LTC-A, which entitles the holder to concealed carry on the street. The other is an LTC-B, which does not permit carry on a “public way,” but permits guns in the home. Since the veteran never applied for a license, he can’t claim that he was denied the use of a gun, as Heller and McDonald successfully claimed. In fact, since he had 60 days to apply while keeping his guns, just the opposite is true.

  4. As a former Army personal myself I would have figure they’d have more self-control not to say that I never got into confrontations with fellow peers but this just rubs me the wrong way. I bet there was alcohol involved. I understand as Tom said one can be a bit edgy when returning from active duty in a combat zone especially when one has gone so many times. My brother seems to spend 6 months out of the year in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, or where ever the Government is sending them these days. Not to take away from the “gun angle” of the story but this just shows the pressure and the lack of attention the modern soldier gets when he/she returns from combat.

    Remember folks WAR is not pretty and its damn sure not some movie scene.

    /me prays for all the solders at broad [and even more for my brother which is actively deployed and can’t spend the holiday weekend with his family]

  6. As this recently discharged member of the 82nd Airborne saw fit to wave a gun at his chosen roomate, a trivial subject, I’ll take a moment to call to your attention my honorable and devoted roommate during Primary Helicopter Flight School at Ft. Wolters, Texas, and later my roomate during Instrument training at Ft. Rucker, WO1 Rick Knudson, who died less than a month after graduating from flight school and less than three weeks before the end of US involvement in RVN combat, shot down by a SAM7 missile just past the Thanch Han River slightly west of Quang Tri, RVN. He and another WO1, neither with much time in country, were sent on a routine mission which required knowledge of the landscape just south of the DMZ. I had previously served in this immediate area at our base, Dong Ha, during Lam Son 719. Where were all the experienced WO2’s, I ask myself? A north Vietnamese farmer, it turned out, had observed the shoot-down and had given Rick a proper burial in his village graveyard, and his remains were recovered years later. To the thousands of ARVN soldier widows generated by the Kissenger/Haig inspired two-month foray into Laos I extend my sympathy. We should have stayed, keeping Laos cut in half, as the NVA Colonel who accepted our cease fire later admitted. To those exerting political pressures from home making this continuation impossible, I extend my disdain. To the 360 members of the 4/1/1 ARVN infantry we dropped on a lonely hill in Laos, only 61 of whom made it to the rescue LZ, of which only 16 were actually rescued by us on March 18, 1971, I scatter rose petals on the ground in your honor. Wars fought far from the homeland always make soldiering subject to the fickle political shifts of a remote empire’s capitol. But to these ARVN, fighting within 200 miles of their villages, the Laos campaign was their last hope of freedom from communism. Washington didn’t agree, and so they and eight of my platoon members died in vain militarily, but not forgotten, their honor reaffirmed in living memory on this day of remembrance, as lives the honor of our million more who died because politicians and the propertied gentry at a safe remove decided it was necessary. God be with these brave young men for eternity. ” I do not mourn their loss this day, but rather stand in awe that such men ever existed.”

  7. Here’s rootin’ for Attorney Calcagni. I realize the extenuating circumstances but Mr. Veteran would have been better off staying in North Carolina. Anyone who owns guns should think twelve times before moving to a nanny/police state like Massachusetts.

  8. Congratulations? Your hero veteran is a dangerous hidden criminal. How long do you think it’ll be before he ends up convicted of serious gun violations?

    You applaud when a law-breaker gets away with it? Shame.

    • What the hell is a Hidden Criminal. You have never defined that term in anything approaching a concrete way.

        • I hadn’t seen that, and since you only posted it on June 5, when I asked the question on June 3, claiming that I’d already seen it is a little bit pants-on-head.

          Ok, so how do you identify them?

          You want to make laws that limit the actions of a certain subset of people, “hidden criminals,” so you have to be able to identify them.

          You also have to be able to identify them without lumping actual lawful gun owners in with them.

          By the way, using someone who had already committed a DV assault as your example makes you look silly, since had it been reported, he’d have been a prohibited possessor.

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