Are American citizens required to take a class before registering to vote? What about exercising their right to free speech? Is a journalism degree required prior to exercising one’s freedom of the press?
Of course not. Rights don’t work that way. They’re ours by virtue of being free men and women.
So why are our Second Amendment rights so often treated differently? A lot of people think a training requirement is perfectly reasonable, after all, despite opposing it for literally any other constitutionally protected right, and can’t understand the opposition to it.
And that’s going to become a bit of a thing up in Massachusetts, where they’re considering such a thing.
Gun rights groups, though, aren’t thrilled.
CCRKBA board member and Bearing Arms contributor John Petrolino sent a letter to John H. Melander, Jr. at the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security in Boston, warning him that such a requirement is unconstitutional.
“There are no training mandates in order to exercise any other civil liberties enumerated by the U.S. Bill of Rights, and the Second Amendment should not be treated like a second-class right,” Petrolino wrote.
That’s far from the only issue here.
“What’s even more troubling, aside from being unconstitutional, the live fire mandate will affect those seeking a license to carry to own and use stun guns and Tasers,” Petrolino continued. “Consider someone who wants an electric weapon to protect themselves instead of a firearm because they’re anti-gun. It’s morally repugnant for the Commonwealth to force those who are anti-gun to have to handle and fire firearms in order to exercise their right to self-defense via other means.”
While I like guns and want to shoot them, some people have very real issues with firearms for a variety of reasons. The idea of making any form of self-defense beyond a spray, including live firearm training seems ridiculous, especially for less-lethal options.
“There is not a lot of wiggle room in the state constitution,” said CCRKBA Managing Director Andrew Gottlieb. “I encourage our members in Massachusetts to attend this hearing and identify themselves when they comment. With their actions, together we can make meaningful changes to protect our rights”.
But the CCRKBA isn’t the only group taking issue with the proposal.
Jim Wallace of the Gun Owners Action League notes that the state is essentially ignoring current law.
The most recent garbage that we’re dealing with, of course we all know that live fire mandates are part of the new training requirements. Which by the way we haven’t seen yet. We had filed a lawsuit on that in federal court. Having spent the money to develop the suit and actually file it and then they suspended that part of the law which seems to be happening quite a bit. But in this case, section 152 of the infamous chapter 135, requires the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security (EOPSS). I always love that last word, security, I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean but anyway, they’re supposed to file a report with the legislature on live fire training expectations. Now, they’re supposed to include, and this is what it says in this section:
… any recommendations to ensure that such live fire training does not become cost prohibitive and that resources and facilities to conduct such training are adequate and reasonably available to individuals in all regions of the state…
So it then goes further:
… prior to issuing such report and recommendations the secretary shall conduct no less now at a minimum two public hearings in different regions of the state to solicit public input…
Now, just yesterday, so that would have been about Thursday May 29th they held their first hearing, if you want to call it that, on the mandate. What actually happened was it was a Teams meeting so it was online. They haven’t gotten out and talked to anybody at any of the ranges any of the clubs. They really haven’t even talked to instructors other than those testified. But here’s the interesting thing, they’re already holding hearings on the impacts of live fire mandate when we don’t even know what that mandate is yet.
So, again the state police haven’t even come together and put together any kind of curriculum surrounding the live fire mandate. So, how are we supposed to testify in front of EOPSS about something that doesn’t exist yet. There were an awful lot of questions from instructors yesterday at this particular one.
It also seems that whoever held the meeting didn’t bother to interact with anyone. They simply called their name and let them speak, without asking questions or anything else. That’s a problem because there are questions.
Wallace brings up one that someone asked what they would do if ammunition were scarce? I mean, it’s happened before. It’ll probably happen again at some point or another.
Everything about this is a cluster flop, but it doesn’t even need to exist in the first place. As both Gottlieb and Petrolino noted, this is unconstitutional, both at the federal and state levels. There’s nothing about this that isn’t wrong, even if it were being handled perfectly.
Yet as Wallace notes, it’s not.
Massachusetts needs to wake the heck up and stop this nonsense immediately. Unfortunately, I think we all know that they won’t.
Read the full article here
