BOSTONPolice chiefs from across Massachusetts today joined Deval Patrick and Martha Coakley in their support of continued local control of granting gun licenses, and opposing Kerry Healeys plan for state control of the gun permit process.
Following this mornings event the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association met and voted to endorse Deval Patrick for Governor, marking only the third time in the last 30 years that it has endorsed a candidate.
Law enforcement professionals at the local level are the best protection against a gun being placed in the hands of an inappropriate person, said Chief Wayne Sampson, commander of the Shrewsbury Police Department. We know our communities and the people who reside there best, and we are adamantly against the state taking over this essential public safety function.
The Lieutenant Governor recently accepted the endorsement of the Gun Owners Action League of Massachusetts after earning a 95 percent rating from the organization. After accepting the groups support, Healey called for state control of the gun permitting process.
These local chiefs know who the responsible gun owners are in their cities and towns, and they know the bad characters who shouldnt get a gun permit, Deval Patrick said. Local control of gun permits isnt broken and a Beacon Hill bureaucracy certainly wont fix it.
Joining the chiefs in their support of Patrick were Middlesex County District Attorney Martha Coakley and Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to End Gun Violence. Helmke, the former mayor of the Fort Wayne, Indiana police department also announced the Brady Campaigns endorsement of Patrick at the morning press conference.
The license to carry is a State License.
It is not currently being administered an evenhanded manner.
Some chiefs will license anyone who can breathe, others will license absolutely no one whatsoever.
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The state needs to take back control of the process in order that all its citizens be treated equally under the law.
We all should be treated equally under the law, should we not?
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Healey’s proposed reforms will require notification of local authorities, who will then provide the necessary input to the licensing board.
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This is a reform that is long overdue, and will help to lower crime in our Commonwealth.
Anyone who understands the process will applaud Kerry Healey for tackling this issue, not demagogue her.
I think licensing should be left to the locals who best know the community.
Healey got the endorsement of the gun lobby! The only way to earn that “prize” is by promising to make guns more accessible. ‘nuf said.
Accessible by law abiding citizens.
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Finished that for you.
According to the Globe article on it, part of the questionaire specifically asked about giving guns to people with police records. We can’t know her answer, but she did score 95% so we can guess.
Yes, there seems to be a lot of “guessing” by people who know little of the actual laws and procedures of the Commonwealth, but who like to feel and appear as though they do.
It’s obvious that you have no idea how a chief issues a firearm’s license. In all communities a thorough investigation has to be conducted. And if there is any questions, then the discretion is given to a chief to issue or not, based on whom he/she deems is a “suitable person”. I strongly agree with our 2nd Amendment, yet also know the GOAL endorsement is one that will never decide a race of this magnitude. Yet Healey was dumb enough to get sucked into the right winged nuts that got to her make another major mistake.
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Go Patrick/Murray !! Grassroots can make a difference in Ma. Politics !!!
As someone who has had a Class A LTC for many years, I’d say I’m pretty well aquainted with the process.
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If I lived TWO STREETS OVER (next town), I would arbitrarily be denied this right.
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Same citizen, same clean record, same neighborhood.
Two different sets of standards.
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Glad to see you admit to thinking that law abiding citizens who own guns are “wing nuts”. It speaks volumes.
I’m proud to say that my brother (who is, obviously, a Police Chief) was the one who formally introduced a request that the organization endorse Deval.
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Although the MCOPA Executive Committee was very favorably impressed by Deval’s presentation to them, there was no great groundswell to endorse him (or anyone else).
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That all changed after Mitt’s LG came out in favor of GOAL’s goal of making guns more freely available. Any law enforcement officer knows that’s a prescription for disaster.
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As I’ve commented elsewhere, Ms. Healey is our best campaign worker! Is there any constituency she has failed to alienate?
Perhaps, but I am even starting to question that.
The Massachusetts Firearms Lobby (well, GOAL as the largest group) has a record of falling for all sorts of things from Republican mouths, as witness their support for Governor Cellucci a few years back, when there was a legitimate pro-Second-Amendment Libertarian candidate in the race. Celucci took their support, and stabbed them in the back, but some of them do not seem to have learned from the experience.