In MA “Show Me Your Papers” Should Include Gun License

Here’s a new twist on a couple of tired debates.

A lawsuit has been filed in Massachusetts that would give legal residents the right to bear arms. It’s what happens in liberal Massachusetts at the corner of AZ1070  and the second amendment.

The suit was filed by The Second Amendment Foundation, characterized by Hispanically Speaking as “the nation’s oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms.”

This is the gist of the story:

The lawsuit alleges that Christopher M. Fletcher of Cambridge and Eoin M. Pryal of Northboro – both legal resident aliens – have been specifically denied the ability to obtain a Firearms Identification Card or a License to Carry of any kind. Before moving to Massachusetts, Fletcher lived in California, where he had a Basic Firearms Safety certificate and Handgun Safety certificate, which allowed him to purchase and own firearms including handguns. Pryal, who is married to a citizen of this country, and had a shotgun certificate and international dealer’s license while living in the United Kingdom.

In Texas we want to give guns to everybody, so a similar law would make sense here, in a strange way. In Massachusetts, where a citizenry armed  for sustenance as well as for protection in the 18th century made use of their firearms to help forge a country, that right is apparently not so easily held.

But let’s put another layer on the street corner metaphor. Proponents of the lawsuit claim they have a very good chance at prevailing because the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment gives everyone the right-of-way. There’s precedent.

Comm2A President Brent Carlton (said)  “Governor Deval Patrick’s administration has broadly supported the immigrant community and noted our dependence on them for our continued prosperity while Massachusetts law treats those same individuals as inherently dangerous enough to justify their exclusion from certain fundamental rights…

No word yet as the when the suit will be heard.

Follow Victor Landa on Twitter: @vlanda