A friend of mine who lives across the river recently upgraded his gun permit, notoriously hard to get from the Boston Police Department, to be almost completely unrestricted. He can’t buy and carry a machine gun but otherwise he can walk around with a high-capacity pistol any time and more or less any place except some college campuses that ban guns.
How did he do it? “It turns out the legislators didn’t want their laws against gun ownership to apply to them. Nearly all of them are lawyers so they set it up so that if you have bar association card you can get an unrestricted permit. They thought it would look bad if they exempted only legislators.”
That’s not something the legislature did. It may be BPD policy, but there’s nothing in MGL about it. MGL puts full discretion in the hands of the chief of police in the issuing city/town.
See this article from yesterday’s Globe: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2013/03/10/want-gun-license-massachusetts-much-depends-where-you-live/04SFWtTEpGdtEHm5mTQuSO/story.html
…. whereupon we’ve stumbled upon the crux of gun control:
Control the other’s access – we’ll keep ours, thank you very much.
Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security needs enough bullets to wage war – in the homeland – for 20+ years:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphbenko/2013/03/11/1-6-billion-rounds-of-ammo-for-homeland-security-its-time-for-a-national-conversation/
http://www.snopes.com/politics/guns/ssabullets.asp
What Jeff said. Also, an unrestricted Class A LTC is just that. There is no machine gun provision on any LTC. It’s a separate License to Own a Machine Gun, also referred to as a “green card”.
Some police chiefs will issue unrestricted Class A LTC to lawyer’s for the purpose of taking possession of a client’s firearms, should a situation arrive where a person has to lose custody of his firearms, but is not required to surrender them to the authorities.
Of course, its BS reasoning, as a restricted Class A LTC (no concealed carry) will let you posses and transport any such firearms (unloaded and locked).
I would think a Harvard law School-affiliated blog would, you know, get the law straight. Though, I don’t fault anyone who doesn’t understand fully the labyrinth that is Massachusetts gun control legislation.
I am thinking that unrestricted licenses are coming soon to the whole country via reciprocity once the House adds it to any of the gun control bills coming out of the Senate as amendments. It passed last session, but never made it through the Senate. Now there is a great vehicle that both the Senate and President wants to see happen so it’s an obvious place to amend it on.
It is a shame that people in your area of the country are denied what we consider to be a basic right in Kentucky. I cannot imagine living in a place where a loaded gun is both feared and maligned. I guess maybe it is a difference in lifestyles and access to police protection that defines how we think. I have lived places where a 911 call results in police presence the following morning and exchange of gunfire actually slows that response until a KSP unit can be roused from bed to back up the local sheriff unit. Many of us here view a firearm as just another tool. They are seen as vital as an axe, chainsaw, screwdriver, or hammer…and often regarded as such.