No one who lives in Massachusetts really trusts the court system there to look out for their gun rights, and not without reason. For a state that sparked off the American Revolution over an effort to take away people’s guns, they’ve gotten very squeamish about people having guns.
I’m never going to be able to wrap my head around that bit of irony.
Regardless, as Cam previously wrote, the state actually got it right recently. The court said that the state couldn’t say someone was “unsuitable” to get a carry permit because her husband was an issue.
The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is celebrating the decision, as noted in their recent press release:
A Massachusetts Appeals Court panel unanimously “made the right call” in ruling a wife cannot be denied an application for a license to carry (LTC) because of past incidents involving her husband, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms observed.
In the case of Guinane v. Chief of Police of Manchester-by-the-Sea, the three-judge panel reversed lower court rulings and ordered that Barbara Guinane’s application for a license to carry be granted, even though her husband’s LTC had been suspended.
“This is a proper ruling which recognizes that one person may not be penalized because of the behavior of another person, even a spouse,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “The police chief acknowledged during court testimony there was ‘no behavior by Guinane suggesting that her licensure might create a safety risk.’ You can’t deny one person’s rights based on another person’s past behavior.”
Writing for the court, Justice Peter Sacks noted, “Although the chief was understandably concerned about public safety, there was no reliable information about behavior by the applicant suggesting that, if issued a license, she would create a risk to public safety or a risk of danger to herself or others. That is the focus of the standard.”
Justice Sacks was joined in his 14-page opinion by Justices Gregory Massing and Jennifer Allen. Near the end of his ruling, Sacks wrote, “Absent the evidentiary support required by (law), the chief’s concerns, while plainly understandable, were not sufficiently ‘reasonable and legitimate’ to warrant a determination of unsuitability. As the statute makes clear, denial of an LTC application cannot be based on speculation.”
“Even in Massachusetts,” Gottlieb commented, “common sense can prevail in gun-related cases. Mrs. Guinane’s small personal victory could translate into something more significant for other Bay State residents who may face similar circumstances.”
It’s long been understood in the courts, even if some officials haven’t bothered to read the memo, that a spouse cannot be deprived of his or her rights because of their partner’s actions.
As a nation, we absolutely should hold people accountable for their actions. What we should never do is hold the families of adults accountable for the actions of their loved ones. Not like this.
Guinane wasn’t the problem. Her husband was, and he had his own license to carry suspended, which is fine, at least as I understand it. For her to be denied for it, though, was a step too far.
Is there reason to believe that sometimes, wives will use their rights to get around their husbands having lost theirs? Oh, absolutely. We see it often enough that we’d be stupid not to believe it happens.
But we don’t issue blanket rules about wives losing their rights because their husbands are prohibited for some reason. After all, that’s not how rights work. If she’s found to have broken the rules herself, that changes things, but then she’s accountable for her own actions.
As she should be.
The court in Massachusetts got it right. I never thought I’d write those words, but here we are.
This time, the infringement was too egregious even for them to overlook, which tells you something. It tells you there’s a line even Massachusetts state court judges refuse to cross when it comes to the Second Amendment.
It’s about blasted time.
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