AG’s motion in gun case shot down
Judge denies Healey’s request to reject cops’ testimony in firearms suit
A federal judge has denied Attorney General Maura Healey’s motion to quash testimony from local police departments in a firearms lawsuit, a ruling an attorney for the gun retailers suing over her so-called copycat assault rifle ban praised.
“It’s a positive sign that the stalling and delaying tactics of the attorney general have been put aside and the case can move forward,” said Lawrence Keane, general counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
The foundation and other gun retailers sued the attorney general over her 2016 enforcement notice expanding the state’s ban to guns that appear similar to prohibited weapons such as AR-15 rifles, but were designed without features that are used to define assault weapons in state law.
Business owners argue the notice is unconstitutionally vague, violates the Second Amendment and deprives gun shops of property without due process.
Federal Magistrate Judge David Hennessy wrote in a motion ruling Tuesday that information from the Holyoke, Worcester, Orange and Agawam police departments, representing the locations of the plaintiffs, was relevant to the case. Healey objected to their testimony because it sought discovery on matters beyond the scope of the claims, she said, and placed an undue burden on the departments.
Hennessy wrote the police departments’ testimony was relevant because of Healey’s own admission in filings that “the AG is not the only law enforcement officer” authorized to enforce the state’s assault weapons ban.
“She herself said, to paraphrase it, ‘I’m not the only cop in town,’ ” Keane said.
Healey’s office declined to comment on Tuesday’s ruling.
The plaintiffs have also served subpoenas for the state police, the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and Security and Gov. Charlie Baker’s office.
Attorneys, in an opposition filing to Healey’s motion, wrote the 2016 enforcement notice wasn’t clear because the attorney general took over two years to figure out how to apply two tests to determine if guns were copies or duplicates of banned assault weapons.
They also questioned Healey’s assertion that the distinction between banned and allowed weapons “has always been clear to persons of ordinary intelligence.”
“For the Attorney General to state that …” the attorneys wrote, “necessarily implies that those people from the Attorney General’s Office who struggled and were unable to determine its meaning … must not be of ordinary intelligence.”
A federal judge ruled in March 2018 against Healey’s bid to dismiss the suit, saying the business owners’ case had merit. Keane said one of the plaintiffs has been driven out of business as a result of the ruling leaving gun shops unclear of what firearms are allowed to be sold or not sold.
The gun shops’ amended complaint concerns the application of the enforcement notice to seven weapons, including .22 caliber rimfire AR-15 style rifles.