Lowell Mass : Detailed Essay and $1,100 Course now required for CCW

Lowell Mass : Detailed Essay and $1,100 Course now required for CCW

City gun policy in place, despite protests

Be glad you don't live in Lowell Mass......

A new policy in Lowell Massachusetts now requires an essay on why an applicant should receive a license to carry and provide extra documentation such as military or LEO experience and also include letters of recommendation.

Plus also pass a very expensive $1,100 FIVE DAY Course to be considered for an "unrestricted gun license". Police Superintendent William Taylor would not listen to concerned residents who are against this policy.


http://www.lowellsun.com/breakingnews/ci_29406406/city-gun-policy-place-despite-protests



" "We're no longer taking a cookie-cutter approach to issuing firearms licenses," he said.

According to Taylor, Lowell has about 6,000 licenses-to-carry issued. The "vast majority," he said, are restricted, which do not allow residents to openly carry guns.

A Sun review last year of state firearms data found Lowell to be among the lowest four-fifths of similar Massachusetts cities in terms of the per-capita rate at which it grants permits."
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Pretty much everything else sounds crazy to me, but if you drop the price to around $50 I would love to see a similar course required everywhere. People should have to prove they know what they are doing with a gun before being allowed to carry one and the current courses, at least the one I took here in Tennessee, don't even come close to that.

 

And who will set the standards of "proof"?

 

the problem here in MA is we are a may-issue state......and each police Chief reserves the right to impose additional restrictions to the licensing procedure as he sees fit.

a standard MA firearms safety course (required for any licensing) runs around $65-100 and is 4hrs long......and they cover the basics of handgun ownership, basic gun safety, and some range time(usually)

quite frankly, i dont know anything about this new $1000 5 day course, or who is offering it.

but it is clearly a dileberate attempt to dissuade people from applying for firearms licenses, and is in my opinion, a 21 century "Jim-crow' law.

ah yes, i believe i remember reading that clause in the 2A...."the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infirnged.....AFTER they have proven they 'know what they are doing'...."

 

As the US Supreme Court ruled nearly 200 years ago, the power to tax is often used as the power to destroy that which it would be unconstitutional to ban outright. (SCOTUS overturned a prohibitive tax passed against the national bank by South Carolina when the state's ban was overturned.)

$1,100 training requirement for a carry permit is simply a "sin tax" designed to ban de facto.

When I got my Tennessee Handgun Carry Permit, the requirement was a 4 hour class on the laws on self-defense and 4 hour class on gun safety with written exams with passing scores, plus firing qualification at the range with at least a minimum passing score. This certfication as eligible to apply for permit cost $75. The permit application involved fingerprinting, TBI and FBI BG checks, and cost $115 good for 4 years, processed shall-issue like a drivers license: if you qualified and applied, you got it.

The previous system was each of 95 county sheriffs decided at their discretion who got a carry permit for defense. Otherwise, carry of a weapon outside the home or place of business for purpose of defense was treated as illegally going armed, same crime and penalties as carrying for purpose of offense.

 

This sounds like you want every one to prove they know what they're doing but you carry even though the course you took was severely lacking...?

BTW, AZ dropped the requirement for a CWP and there was no increase in accidents and deaths.

 

Obviously it is not easy for most people to pack up and leave, but there are many surrounding towns that do not have these onerous requirements. I lived in Beverly for six years and I had no problem obtaining/renewing my Class A LTC.

 

My county in New York requires a letter to the judge and a 1 day class that costs between $150-200 to get an unrestricted carry permit. This is an improvement as the previous judge refused to issue them.

 

This is a bit of a loaded question. If I say something like the NRA or the voting public we all know it'll never happen. At the same time if I say the government I am sure there will be people that say the government will just use it to limit people who carry. Since we are at an impasse I'll just say magic fairies should do it. Its not a perfect system, but I think its a better option than letting people that barely know which way is the front of a gun to carry without first being trained.

I do not see it as infringing upon anyone's rights to want them to know what they are doing. Its more an exercise of my own right to safety.

The course that I took is the reason I think training would be a good idea. Here is a small walkthrough of the course that I took. The instructor, a local officer funny enough, started the class portion by telling us there would be a test at the end that we had to pass. He then said not to worry yourself about it because he would tell us all of the answers after the test and we could change them. He merely requested that people leave a few wrong so that it doesn't look suspicious. After the class was over we went on to range time. The instructor began range time by telling us not to worry about how we shot. Apparently the only time he ever failed someone was when a guy shot himself in the leg. Most of the people that I took the class with did okay, but one woman in particular did not. She was shooting a Taurus pt22 that jammed constantly. The instructor had to fix the jam every time because she did not know what to do. When she actually was shooting she did not do much better. She was in the lane beside me and I found 3 holes in my target the size of a 22. I don't recall looking at her target but if she managed to hit my target 3 times I doubt she did all that well on her target.

Anyway, my apologies for the long post, but I just wanted to explain exactly why I think there should be more training involved in getting a carry permit. I have a wife and two kids and there is no way I would want that woman or anyone remotely like her carrying a firearm near my family. I would honestly be okay with just the current regulations in Tennessee if they were actually enforced.

 

*

Outside of your own home.....you have no "right" to safety

 

Absolutely not. What five day course did you take to be able to exercise your 1st, 4th, or 5th amendment rights?

 

The Tennessee course BearBrimstone describes in #9 is NOT at all like what I and my son took.

Our answers were in the material in the 4 hours of instruction, fershore, but the tests were conducted after the class ove from our memory, the papers collected and graded by the instructor, and we had no opportunity to change our answers. We found out if we passed by receiving our certification in the mail.

I read some privileged character brag in a newspaper op-ed that "all they had to do was watch a 45 minute video tape from the state attorney general" to get certified as eligible to apply for a permit, but that is not typical. The stuff described in post #9 is atypical. Reminds me of stories under the discretionary system of campaign contributers getting permits from sheriffs as party favors.

 

"People should have to prove they know what they are doing with a gun before being allowed to carry one..."

In theory, I agree with you. It seems like one of those common sense 'Duh!' things.

But to justify that empirically, you'd need evidence that lack of testing somehow has a bad outcome. WA state has had shall issue concealed carry since the early 60's - over half a century. You'd think that would be enough time for those hypothesized bad outcomes to surface - and I submit they haven't.

It's not like no one with a permit does bad things - a few years ago a young gent who was a fraternity president got his permit as soon as he turned 21 ... and engaged in a drive by of a rival frat a few days later. That's certainly a bad outcome, but I have serious doubts that a training course would have changed things. It's not like he thought having a permit made drive by shootings legal.

In general, I think empirical results ought to carry more weight than theory.

 

This won't hold up in court. No way. Because it discriminates against people with dyslexia or other reading and writing impairments that otherwise may not have any disqualifying issue. It also discriminates against people with inferior education (mostly minorities). The $1100 burden will also almost certainly get struck down, similar to poll taxes.

Basically: this restriction is demonstrably discriminatory, with over 50 years of legal precedence going against it.

They've crossed a line that is potentially grounds to have May Issue declared unconstitutional should it reach the higher courts, as they've instituted something that clearly discriminates against minorities, the poor, and people with disabilities.

 

Just to the issue of what a fair test would be, if the practical shooting part was exactly the same test the local police have to pass that would at least be objective. I'm not taking a position here as to whether a test should be required, honestly I can argue either way -- yes because of public safety, no because it's "infringing".

In California we have to take a written test to even buy a gun and pay $25 for the ensuing "Firearms Safety Certificate", but the instructional material is available free on the internet. The test is mainly about California laws pertaining to ownership and use of guns. I think the certificate is good for five years. The gun store is also supposed to verify that the buyer can demonstrate how to correctly load and unload whatever firearm is being purchased.

 

I heard Jim Wallace of GOAL/Mass on the radio tonight. He didn't have anything upbeat about this to report.

My thought was in order to fight it everyone who gets a denial should challenge the ruling. Just overwhelm the court system of Lowell with appeals of the denials.

 

Is this not a blatant literacy test to exercise a constitutional right? What moron thought they'd get away with this in any court? A favorable ruling would unleash poll taxes & 'tests' like in the bad old days down south (probably next on these local bosses' wish lists)

TCB

 

I just took my course in Oregon. No test written or practical. We spend about a hour with the instructor telling us line by line how to fill out the forms, getting pictures and fingerprints. Then he went through a powerpoint presentation for an hour. That was it.

He did have a few airsoft guns that he let some people practice squeezing a trigger and racking a slide. It was clear that some of those people had never handled a gun before. Hopefully they will go get some training but as far as Oregon is concerned they are good to go if they pay the $65 and show an approved ID.