Mass. bill would let felons buy, carry arms!

Notice the wording and how the Liberal Editorial Staff views this. You can almost see them seething with anger and hate.

Liberal Taxachusetts is LOOSENING gun control laws??? Pinch me, I must be dreaming!!! :)

It is probably a trap to force an increase in gun crime so they can force more gun control.

The pols have increased the things that qualified for a felony just to reduce gun ownership. In some places simply being accused of domestic abuse prevents lawful gun ownership. Anyone can get a gun, I like allowing people to own them lawfully, especially those denied for minor reasons.

If the person has not been arrested for a crime for seven years after completing his/her sentence, then I think its reasonable to restore this right.

Wait a minute. Almost no law abiding citizen can get a carry permit in Masschusettes and yet the law makers are going to let felons have more access to guns.

What's wrong with this picture?

I live in CT and if I vacation on Cape Cod I lock my pistol in a lock box in my glove box. I still believe that I'm breaking Mass law and would be liable for a one-year mandatory sentence.

Now the criminals get special provisions, what the hell?

Two points that I've seen raised in other threads:

1) Doesn't the BATF have firearm possession rules that supersede state laws?

2) If a man can't be trusted with a firearm, why let him out of prison in the first place?

''There are too many people who were convicted of a simple assault or battery,'' said Toomey, a Cambridge Democrat"

So the solution is to arm them so they can upgrade to agravated assault or ADW?

Wonder if they would allow a pilot, convicted of simple assualt 20 years ago, to carry a gun on an airplane?

''The Legislature should be looking to get illegal firearms off the street, not re-arm violent criminals,'' said Jerry Belair, spokesman for Stop Handgun Violence, an antigun advocacy group.

Here's a thought for you Jerry: If they are violent criminals, why are you setting them free? Second, do you seriously think they don't have a gun already?

Jacques said that the House passage was a result of powerful gun lobbyists pushing for looser restrictions even as citizens are increasingly concerned about the upsurge in violence. She emphasized that there are a number of proposals in the House that would strengthen the power of law enforcement to get guns off the street, but that instead action has been taken to restore gun-owning rights to convicted criminals.

Now exactly how are the "powerful gun lobbyists" getting this bill through an almost exclusively liberal Democrat populated legislature? It should be noted that Jacques (rhymes with fakes) is a flaming liberal lesbian that has lied her way into the Mass. legislature.

MA Citizens for Truth in Politics has issued the following:

(Boston, MA) -- Massachusetts government watch group Citizens for Truth in Politics (CTP) has filed formal complaints against State Senator Cheryl Jacques, charging her with criminal misuse of federally funded workers for political action. CTP activists presented videotape and letters proving that Senator Jacques solicited the involvement of 150 federally funded City Year youth workers for the "First Monday" rally calling for more gun control legislation. Jacques' office sponsored "First Monday" on October 2, 2000.

Federal law under U.S. Title 18, Sections 666 and 641 prohibit the use of federal funds for political purposes. The law carries a penalty of fines and imprisonment of up to ten years.

"Senator Jacques deliberately misled City Year administrators into believing the rally was focused on public safety and was not a political rally," asserts CTP founder Lawrence Savage. When City Year administrators learned of the political content, they were forced to withhold compensation from youth workers for the time worked at the rally. "Senator Jacques basically stole these young people's labor," Savage said. "We are calling for her to personally reimburse the youth workers and to resign her position."

Irate City Year management immediately put into place measures to prevent further abuse, and offered other work opportunities to the workers. Over 20 City Year workers were used to set up shoes at Trinity Church for the "Silent March" exhibit and to attend the rally to boost tepid attendance.

Jacques, who has announced her candidacy for Lt. Governor, has skillfully used the issue of gun control to seize the media spotlight. She sponsored Massachusetts' 1998 gun control law, deemed the nations' toughest. Critics of the law blame it for the dramatic increase in violent crime recorded since the law went into effect. Civil rights groups from the Massachusetts Gun Owners' Action League to the Boston gay gun rights group the Pink Pistols have condemned the law, claiming it has actually increased crime and that it legalizes arbitrary discrimination by town police chiefs.

Under Jacques' law, each town police chief has sovereign power to issue or withhold licenses based on any criteria they decide, without providing the reason to the applicant. In the aftermath of the workplace shootings in Wakefield, Jacques called for even stronger gun control measures, but a letter printed in the Boston Herald on January 11 emphasizes that one of the Wakefield victims had a New Hampshire pistol permit and was denied a reciprocal license under Jacques' own law. Senator Jacques is presently working with gun control groups nationwide to export similar laws to other states.

"We are asking for criminal charges, absolutely," emphasized Richard Kramer, the CTP activist who obtained statements from City Year administrators proving Jacques' embezzlement. "Misusing public funds is criminal. Exploiting City Year children is wrong. This Senator puts lives of Commonwealth citizens at risk to further her political career, and she uses our own money to do it. Public money should be used for schools and roads, not to fund the gun control lobby." Kramer noted that a string of criminal scandals this past month has exposed how the gun control lobby bankrolls itself heavily from public funds.

Now get this: Believe it or not, a MA group of gay gun owners, called Pink Pistols, has condemned statements of Jacques regarding her support of the onerous Chapter 180 of the MA gun code:

Aiming to set the record straight

Printed 3/8/01 in In Newsweekly, Boston

Thank you very much for your recent article on the Pink Pistols. While the article was fair, there were some unfortunate but significant errors in it that could seriously mislead the public on the Pink Pistols' positions. I hope that you will print this letter to correct them.

The Pink Pistols have condemned Chapter 180, and not Senator Cheryl Jacques specifically, as the article stated. We have no particular dislike for Cheryl, and we support some of her work, such as her support for the Safe Schools program. However, the 1998 gun law she sponsored preserved and extended a system of arbitrary discrimination. Under Chapter 180, an applicant who is otherwise legally qualified may be denied a gun license for self defense, for any reason the town police chief desires, or for no specific reason at all, regardless of need. As GLBT civil rights activists, we do not believe in allowing arbitrary discrimination on the part of any public official for any reason - the criteria used should be written down in law and apply equally to all citizens, whether or not they are friends of the chief or the "correct" color or sexual orientation.

I was somewhat disturbed to see that almost all of the quotes from Senator Jacques and John Rosenthal are factually incorrect and/or misleading. See our webpage, www.pinkpistols.org, for a detailed markup of the article with references showing the inaccuracies. An obvious example: Senator Jacques is quoted as saying that her law "doesn't stop any lawful citizen, who feels he or she needs a handgun to protect themselves, unless he or she is a convicted felon, a wanted fugitive or has a history of violence or mental illness." This statement is simply untrue, and anyone can check it by calling their local police chief, or looking up 1998's Chapter 180 on the state website. The law allows a town police chief arbitrary, unlimited power to deny a license for self defense or restrict it so heavily it is useless. Further, Senator Jacques claims she had nearly nothing to do with Chapter 180, but two weeks ago in Bay Windows, she is quoted as being the "driving force behind the passage of the state's 1998's gun control law".

Most seriously, the quote advocating that gays arm themselves as a class, which was wrongly attributed to Doug Krick, was actually a quote taken from Jonathan Rauch's Salon.com article from which the Pink Pistols took our name. Rauch did advocate gays arming for self defense, but the Pink Pistols do not take and have never taken any such position. Carrying a gun to defend your life is a personal decision; we believe only that the licensing criteria should be based in law, and not on which town you live in.

On the lighter side, we thought it a true scream to read in the same article how we are "pawns of the NRA" while simultaneously being doomed to their rejection because of their alleged homophobia. We could not have arranged a better demonstration of how people trap themselves in their own stereotypes (except maybe seeing GLAAD comdemn Elton John for dueting with Eminem). As GLBT civil rights activists, we work to better our society by breaking down sterotypes, so we hope your readers think about them and how they impair us from really learning about each other.

Thanks, David Rostcheck Civil Rights Activist Pink Pistols of Boston davidr@pinkpistols.org

Jacques pro-woman, pro-gay agenda has drawn outrage from the Fatherhood Coalition for her anti-male stance that discriminates against men in general and fathers in the midst of divorce in particular:

BOSTON, November 4?In a strongly worded letter to Senate President Thomas Birmingham and Rep. James Fagan, chair of the Post Audit and Oversight Committee, the Fatherhood Coalition voiced its outrage at the choice of Senator Cheryl Jacques (D. Needham) to head an investigation into the training and reporting standards of guardian ad litems (GALs). These are the court-appointed investigators who make custody recommendations to judges in contested child custody litigation.

The Fatherhood Coalition is a statewide organization founded in 1994 that advocates for fathers rights.

Senator Cheryl Jacques is the Senate chair of the Post Audit and Oversight Committee, the only legislative committee with subpoena power that has virtually unlimited ability to investigate state agencies.

In the letter to Birmingham and Fagan, the Coalition state that a "full-scale investigation of how family court practices wreak havoc on the father-child relationship and the dismemberment of families is long overdue." They further indicate that they would be willing participants in an honest investigation to that end.

The Fatherhood Coalition also assert that Jacques has a history of favoring anti-father legislation and accuse her of anti-male bigotry, and that she is unqualified to head up an investigation of "something as sensitive to us as the mechanism by which denial of custody rights to fathers have been institutionalized in this state."

According to Coalition Spokesman Mark Charalambous:

"Senator Jacques is widely viewed as fatherhood's biggest foe in the State House. She has actively pursued legislative initiatives that invariably harm fathersthough always disguised as protecting women and children.

Jacques is an orthodox victim-feminist. She perceives the relations between the sexes as one of power and control, rather than love, partnership and reciprocity. Her personal revelations this past year confirmed the suspicions of many that she has some deeply ingrained hostility towards men. Such a person should not be entrusted with the authority to effect policy on matters of family relations and the welfare of children."

The Fatherhood Coalition criticize Jacques for her sponsorship of the "Jacques/Cohen" bill, which became law in the last legislative session. The law "dumbed-down" the standards by which domestic violence should be considered in custody and visitation orders and judgments. It replaced the words "domestic violence" with "domestic abuse", a fuzzy concept that is criticized by fathers rights advocates as merely a feminist definition of annoying male behavior that can be adapted to fit any male and deny them access to their children. The law also added a host of remedies available to judges from which to apply to "abusive" divorcing parents--a euphemism for fathers. As a result, programs such as the so-called "batterer's intervention" programs and supervised visitation centers are now institutionalized in the letter of Massachusetts divorce law.

The Fatherhood Coalition are calling on their members to refuse to offer input into the committee's investigation, as they do not wish to be perceived as validating the work of Sen. Jacques.

The list goes on, but you get the gist of the problem. Just another typical Massachusetts liberal unfairly imposing her beliefs and will on the populace and abusing the system. Massachusetts, home of Barney Frank, Gary Studds, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry etc., etc., etc.

Under the new law, ex-convicts would be able to apply for gun permits seven years after completing their sentences.

Several years I read that New Zealand automatically(?) re-confers the right after 5 years post-release, offense-free. But maybe Kiwis are different stuff...

Bang.

(Please post with full correct title. The article was later reposted by someone probably unable to search out the truncated title.)

Yeah, but the only type of gun approved for sale to civilians is a rubber band gun...

I think non violent felons should be allowed to carry guns like anyone else. In fact they need to define crimes of violence and only prohibit those convicted of crimes of violence from possessing weapons of any kind. If they were forced to defend themselves, then the law would protect them in that instance.

Yes. I agree with the poster that suggests that this is a trap. This can increase gun crime while at the same time not help a single law abiding citizen who wants to carry. It allows for the statistics to twist in the gun-control lobby's way.

bump

Wow... really?

Of course they're out to make us all felons by the myriad of ridiculous gun laws out there already.

PING Loosening gun control laws???

I think non violent felons should be allowed to carry guns like anyone else.

BINGO!

Yup. I think its a common sense bill. Now if only we could get Taxachusetts to become a "shall issue" CCW state, it would be perfect! ;-)

I am a Mass resident and it took me 9 months and some political leverage to obtain my pistol license. it isnt even a full license i can only carry it to the club and back have to keep it locked in a gun vault etc.
Taxachusetts stinks! Long Live New Hampshire (where i long to go)