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Posted on 03/30/2009 4:43:20 AM PDT by marktwain
After a police officer's 12-year-old son got access to the officer's handgun, the officer was prosecuted for violating Mass. Gen. Laws. ch. 140, § 131L:
It shall be unlawful to store or keep any firearm, rifle or shotgun ... in any place unless such weapon is secured in a locked container or equipped with a tamper-resistant mechanical lock or other safety device, properly engaged so as to render such weapon inoperable by any person other than the owner or other lawfully authorized user. For purposes of this section, such weapon shall not be deemed stored or kept if carried by or under the control of the owner or other lawfully authorized user.
Last month, the court held the statute was unconstitutional (Commonwealth v. Bolduc), and dismissed the prosecution. I only just now managed to get a copy of the opinion, and here's the relevant discussion:
The locking mechanisms [required by the statute] are the functional equivalent of those enumerated in the D.C. statute struck down in Heller.
In Heller, the Court held that the Second Amendment not only protects an individual's right to possess firearms but that the right requires that the firearms be available for "the purpose of immediate self-defense." The Massachusetts statute mandating lock boxes or similar devices would frustrate an owner's ability to immediately access an operable weapon.
Although the statute exempts firearms that are "carried" or "under the control of the owner" from the requirement that they be locked, the statute applies to the lawful owner of a firearm even when he is at home. People can be subject to prosecution whether they are home or not. The term "under the control of the owner" is a question of fact and subject to interpretation. Any ambiguity in the statute as applied to a person lawfully keeping a firearm in the home must be resolved in favor of the holder of the right. Legislation requiring an owner to store firearms in a place inaccessible to children or unauthorized persons would satisfy the Supreme Court's holding in Heller and protect the safety of others.
In light of the foregoing, the Court finds that, based on the Supreme Court's decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, G.L.c. 140, sec. 131L is unconstitutional.
According to a Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly article notes that Massachusetts courts seem split on this. It also reports that the prosecutor "agreed with [Judge] Lynch's analysis and decided not to appeal. 'I've read the Heller case,' he says. 'Judge Lynch read the Heller case, and the Heller case seems to say very clearly that these kinds of blanket restrictions are unconstitutional.'"
Interestingly, the court seemed to assume that the Second Amendment applies to state laws -- what lawyers call the "incorporation" issue -- which is something Heller pointedly declined to resolve.
Looks like you already have some great answers!
Cool!
It's an eminently safe assumption with an enumerated right, as any intellectually honest jurist should know.
True, but like marktwain, I was startled to see that the judge in this case knew it too.
It just seemed strange. It didn't seem like the sort of stuff that would come out of a grease impregnated stock just because it got wet.
Oil floats on water, so it may have been the lighter oils separating from the grease or cosmoline. Also, it may not have been entirely due to the water. How warm did it get where the rifles were stored?
One of the popular ways to blot cosmoline out of old military stocks is to put them in a large black plastic garbage bag with plain clay kitty litter (not the clumping stuff). Tie the bag closed and sit it outside in the summer sun for a week or so. The heat will make the grease ooze out of the wood, and the kitty litter soaks it up. Works like a charm, especially if you remember to rotate the stock inside the bag to promote even heating. There's a stock refinishing forum on the "milsurpshooter" website which gives more details and suggestions.
Brownell's also sells a finer-grained powder called "whiting" which works the same way.
Beware of the oven cleaner method; it tends to leave light-colored wood with a slight greenish tinge.
It’s a miracle.
(((cringe)))
You mean, after he makes sure it's not in the gun owner's HAND?
It worked like a charm on my Ishapore Enfields.
Great minds think alike.
You should be very, very scared. LOL
Are you saying Pinesol is good for cleaning carbon residue out of smoothbores?
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No, I mean when the owner is not home...since most burglaries are committed when the house is empty. As I wrote above, finding a gun is as good as finding gold to a burglar.
The ambiguity was with regard to the phrase "under the control of the owner". There is no ambiguity in Heller; that is, a person has a RIGHT to have a gun available for "the purpose of immediate self-defense."
The court found that the Massachusetts law was ambiguous since it could be read to violate Heller. Thus the law is an unConstitutional violation of Heller. The legislature could attempt to redefine the law with language other than "under the control of the owner", but any language that doesn't make clear the mandate of Heller would similarly be unConstitutional.
So the court most certainly DID throw the law out on the basis of the Second Amendment protection as decided in Heller.
As others have pointed out, the really significant thing about this decision is that the judge apparently didn't even bother to address the "incorporation" issue; he just applied Heller to state law.
The Massachusetts Constitution contains, "The people have a right to keep and to bear arms for the common defence." The judge may have realized that the scope of the right, given that the language was adopted in 1780, could not possibly be different than the scope intended by the Second Amendment.
I was just being cute. I realized what you meant. No harm, no foul.
in a holster under the dust ruffle (with a belt woven in-and-out of the box spring to hold it) is better.
Less obvious -— AND -— easier to get to.
Gotcha. I was a cop for a while (a lifetime ago). I saw it often enough to know that master bedroom matresses always get flipped first. Then shoes in the woman’s WIC. Then the freezer.
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