Four Massachusetts retailers along with the NSSF have filed suit against Bay State Attorney General Maura Healey. The matter at bar: Healey’s new, unique interpretation of the state’s laws which, she believes, gives her the power to prohibit the sale of any gun covered under the Clinton era “assault weapons” ban. Here’s the NSSF’s press release:
Firearms Retailers, NSSF File Federal Suit against Attorney General Healey’s Overreaching ‘Enforcement Notice’
NEWTOWN, Conn. – Four federally-licensed Massachusetts firearms retailers and the National Shooting Sports Foundation® (NSSF®), the trade association for the firearms and ammunition industry, today filed action in United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts to challenge on Constitutional grounds the “Enforcement Notice” issued by state Attorney General Maura Healey. The lawsuit states that her office overstepped its legal authority and deprived the retailers of their due process protections guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution. The action seeks declaratory relief and a permanent injunction enjoining enforcement.
The retailers are Pullman Arms Inc. of Worcester; Guns and Gear, LLC of Agawam; Paper City Firearms of Holyoke; and Grrr Gear of Orange.
“Attorney General Maura Healey’s actions were unconstitutional. Firearms retailers in Massachusetts cannot determine the meaning or scope of the Attorney General’s Enforcement Notice and subsequent explanations,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel. “Because criminal penalties can result due to Attorney General Healey’s unilateral reinterpretation of a state statute done without administrative process or input from affected parties, her office exceeded its lawful authority and retailers were deprived of their due process protections under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.”
“In addition, if the Attorney General’s Enforcement Notice is understood as applying to all semi-automatic firearms, it violates the Second and Fourteenth Amendments to keep and bear arms because it bans the manufacture, sale and possession of a broad range of firearms in common use by the citizens of Massachusetts,” Keane said. “Unfortunately, Attorney General Healy’s unconstitutional action has left us no other option than to seek relief from the courts.”
Representing NSSF and the retailers are the Boston-based law firm of Kenney and Sams, P.C., and Michael Sullivan of the Ashcroft Law Firm, who is a former United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts and former Acting Director, U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Read the Civil Action filed today.
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About NSSF
The National Shooting Sports Foundation is the trade association for the firearms industry. Its mission is to promote, protect and preserve hunting and the shooting sports. Formed in 1961, NSSF has a membership of more than 13,000 manufacturers, distributors, firearms retailers, shooting ranges, sportsmen’s organizations and publishers. For more information, visit nssf.org.
So… what happened to the Miller ruling about not being able to ban weapons in common use?
thats exactly what they stated in the lawsuit.
Libtards gunna libtard, the law be damned.
They don’t see “evil semi-auto’s” as being common and they also cite Heller that they are “dangerous and unusual”.
Every court so far has upheld AWB’s.
Unless they get an immediate injunction against this it may be a win-win for the Progs. Even if they lose in the long run they will have in theory prevented the sale of and hopefully gotten rid of some of the scary guns in Mass before that happens.
But the real bottom line is that this is an election year and the Progs have convinced themselves that anything anti-gun will bring votes for Democrats.
Yeah, good luck with that.
Most people in Massachusetts are fundamentally nanny-staters. It will be the California of the east coast.
These are the same folks who re-elected Teddy Kennedy to the senate five times after his cowardly murder of Mary Jo Kopechne.
They also awarded a nitwit $1.5 million dollars from Ryobi after he stupidly sawed off some fingers because his $250 Ryobi saw was not equipped, for free, with $1,500 SawStop technology.
Ted Kennedy won all those re-elections because he was the only candidate on the ballot. I don’t know if this reflects better or worse on the population of Massachusetts. It somehow became a national socialist state, but that isn’t really a new thing. They have always understood that the power people exercise power and that a certain amount abuse of the peasantry is necessary to keep them aware of who is actually in charge of things.
Good luck with the courts.
We all know how this will go down…
Step 1 – preliminary injunction denied
Step 2 – pro-2A attorneys will rip apart the AG’S reasoning and use president and logic to clearly lay out thier case.
Step 3 – An ignorance and uninformed judge will cite previous previous circuit court cases upholding AWBs and even throw in the obligatory Scalia quote from Heller about “dangerous and unusual weapons”.
Step 4 – Using “feelings” they will say that intermediate scrutiny is applied because citizens still have access to single shot guns and therefore the 2A is not violated.
Step 5 – Case dismissed and liberals celebrate at eroding freedom and liberty while advancing big government and thier own power.
Step 6 – Wash, rinse and repeat in other jurisdictions.
You just laid out the blueprint the courts are using against the lawsuit challenging SB 277 in CA. Anyone expecting a fair trial is living under a rock.
These things do follow a familiar circular pattern, that’s for sure. However, circles can become spirals, and spirals can add new and irrevocable steps to the process, resulting in an unexpected outcome.
Courts should tread cautiously and be careful whom they tread on. Forethought and historical perspective will be extremely valuable intellectual tools in a justice’s skill set in the coming years.
Well intended but not well said, I think you got “spellchecked” like crazy.
I did. I am sorry about that. I typed the stuff on my phone and with my phone spell checker in conjunction with the mobile website of the truth about guns constantly hijacking my web browser with ads, it did not let me fix them.
Step 7 rise up and eliminate these bastards and then put the fear of elimination in the next set of cockroaches when they decide to go there own the way.
Yep you get it.
Maybe a friend of my was was right on with this old metal tune….I think it would apply to this…….
*****************************************
Metallica – Don’t Tread On Me Lyrics
Liberty or death, what we so proudly hail
Once you provoke her, rattling of her tail
Never begins it, never, but once engaged
Never surrenders, showing the fangs of rage
Don’t tread on me
So be it
Threaten no more
To secure peace is to prepare for war
So be it
Settle the score
Touch me again for the words that you’ll hear evermore
Don’t tread on me
Step 7….armed revolution… wait for it….
“precedent” not “president”.
Absolutely. From the same courts who gave Massachusetts subjects “the Second Amendment isn’t binding on the states” and “the Second Amendment doesn’t apply to tasers because the Founders didn’t have them.”
No news yet on whether the founders had lesbian weddings.
The commie states like Mass / Ca. / NJ , have long been incubators for anti gun law. As soon as a bad law is enacted at state level it gets pushed on the rest of the Nation as a whole. While I am glad to see this lawsuit more must be done to discourage the unilateral dismantling of Rights. Make it Hurt. Lawmakers should be sued individually , in every state , every time they propose legislation that clearly goes against the Oath of Office each member took. Each legislator is still a citizen and can be PAINFULLY sued.
This will be a great test for the future rulings in these more liberal courts .
It all comes down to one question really, are we Citizens or Subjects?
Technically speaking we are neither. Rather, we are free men and women.
each citizen is allowed to own a single flintlock musket, stored disassembled, and with the powder and ball held by the AGs office and released only with a notorized request 6 months in advance with multiple “please may I, your highness…”
Good luck with the lawsuit. I hope that somehow the courts don’t do their usual mental and verbal ‘gymnastics’ and come up with some sort of ruling that bites everyone in the a**.
” Lt. Col. Francis Smith was given order by General Gage to march with secrecy to Concord Mass. and seize and destroy All ammunition , provisions , small arms , tents and all stores whatever ” – April 1775 , From ‘ Paul Reveres’ Ride ‘ by D.H. Fischer.
Now we have another in a long line of petty , would be tyrants , issuing illegal orders… same as it ever was.
Huh.
Call it what it is. This is not a “new, unique interpretation” of a law. This is a conscious decision and an active strategy to circumvent existing laws to reach a tyrannical outcome and to undermine civil liberties afforded by the US Constitution. In short: tyranny.
This mongoloid needs to be removed from office and replaced with someone that understands the meaning of “uphold the Constitution”.
End of story.
The SCOTUS upheld the AWB of Highland Park, IL this year by denying cert on the appeal. It’s already over and the AWB will be held legal.
Anyone thinking otherwise is in denial.
If you care about gun rights (which are a proxy for all kinds of liberty), find a state to live in where the people, the legislature, and the courts respect them.
Watched the Patriot game last night, they need to change their name from the Boston Patriots to the Boston Subjects (of the Crown) or Loyalists.
SCOTUS denying certiorari does in no way say anthing about the presumed lawfulness of the challenged ordinance. Neither does it establish precedent nor provide the lower courts with any sort of guidance concerning what the High Court might think about the matter. Instead, SCOTUS simply will not take on any further 2nd Amendment cases as long as there is no rule 10 circuit split to resolve (Caetano being the exception here because the contradictions contained in the MA Supreme Court’s ruling vis-à-vis Heller were too blatant and obvious to ignore).
Obama walks guns, the Justice depart is a Joke, Hillery gets a free ride,Obama uses illegal presidential powers to dictate rule and regulations as defacto Law, The supreme court is bought and paid for by the Democrats who are setting the stage for martial law, inciting the Blacks to riot, IRS profiles Republican conservatives, the BLM does Harry Reids bidding, we have a bunch of terrorists coming into this country, Because of an Incompetent Half breed in the white house, so now the State General Attorneys are doing their thing, she should hope the BLM ers don’t get to her house
It seems to me that there’s both financial and safety liability for creating this regulation.
Time for the civil suit. As too often, you don’t expect to win. BUT, you get to put the arguments out there, and brand the ninny forever after. The messaging forever after about that issue, and that politician is “AG, Shenanigans, the subject of a Year of the Cat lawsuit for the impact of a regulation, eventually thrown out by the federal courts…”