FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
 

Gay Civil Rights Group Condemns Discriminatory Massachusetts Chapter 180

"From a civil rights standpoint, the law is horrifying," complained David Rostcheck, an activist with the Pink Pistols, a civil rights group that protects the rights of shooters with alternative sexualities. "It's racist, classist, sexist, homophobic, and it discriminates against the elderly and disabled. When people actually sit down and read it, even ardent gun control advocates are shocked at what it legitimizes. A police chief can deny a license to a legally qualified person based on their gender, their housing, their sexual orientation - absolutely anything they want. Jesse Helms never managed to pass legislation this discriminatory."

At issue are clauses in the 28 page law that set up numerous legal, financial, and procedural barriers to citizens seeking to obtain a gun license for personal protection or sporting use. Civil rights activists claim the law legitimizes systematic discrimination, both overt and covert.

"Chapter 180 was a stealth law," explained Pink Pistols founder Doug Krick. "It purported to be a tough gun law, but what it really did was make guns and gun licenses difficult to legally get and use. And how did it do that? By legalizing discrimination in almost any way you can imagine." Krick points to a laundry list of discriminatory practices introduced under the law. Among his chief complaints: a power called 'discretionary licensing', which allows a town police chief to deny a license to any applicant, even if they pass a safety test, have no criminal record or record of mental illness, and can show dire need.

"'Discretionary licensing' is literally just a code phrase for 'arbitrary discrimination'," Krick explained. "An applicant's right to defend herself is utterly subject to the whim of her town's police chief, regardless of need. Many towns, especially around Boston, use this power to discriminate heavily. A police chief may deny a license because the applicant is a lesbian and her abusive partner or stalker is not considered a serious threat, or because her violent husband has a friend at the police station. Some chiefs simply don't want to issue any licenses in their town and deny almost everything. They don't even need to even give a reason."

Gun control advocates claim that 'discretionary licensing' is needed to deal with unsafe individuals, but civil rights advocates say this is untrue. "In most states, if you meet the legal criteria, you get the license," Rostcheck contends. "Once you start allowing extra-legal criteria into the decision, you open the door to pervasive, systemic discrimination, which is what we see in this state today. A denied applicant at risk for her life may actually need to move to another town. Urban communities with many minority applicants issue almost no licenses, but a similar applicant in an affluent white suburb could get a license. That's discrimination, and it's wrong. The criteria should be written in law and should apply equally to everyone."

And 'discretionary licensing' is just the start of civil rights activists' complaints. They claim Chapter 180 sets up a sophisticated structure of discriminatory barriers designed to systemically strip the right to self defense from entire classes of citizens.

"Chapter 180, in conjunction with restrictive new 'consumer safety' regulations on guns abruptly introduced by the Attorney General, bars gun manufacturers from selling models that are affordable, small enough for a woman to conceal, or usable by the elderly or disabled," asserts Krick. "For example, the law now requires a 10 lb trigger pull - equivalent to curling a 10 lb barbell with your index finger," he continued. "A competition gun has a 1 lb pull. Many smaller or weaker people are physically unable to pull a 10 lb trigger. There are many other such restrictions. So, if you're a person whose life is at risk, you might get a gun license but not be able to actually purchase a gun you can afford or physically use."

Civil rights activists are quick to point to other restrictions that they say are systemic barriers designed to harass, intimidate, or handicap legal gun owners. "Your gun must be stored unloaded, with a child safety lock," Rostcheck notes. "But this is true even if you don't have any children! Disobeying the law is a felony, but if you need the gun to defend your life, obeying it will get you killed."

Pro-gun-rights activists are working to form alliances with a broad consortium of civil rights advocacy groups to challenge the law on several legal grounds, including violating the Americans with Disabilities Act. Rostcheck says that fighting for gun rights in Massachusetts can be an uphill battle. "Civil rights groups here don't like to touch [the right to self defense]. But you have to," he insists. "Once we sanction using discrimination to cut down some rights, the door is open to use it against others. When we defend civil rights, we need to defend them all."

Meanwhile, after the shootings at Edgewater Technologies in Wakefield, Senator Jacques announced plans to introduce new restrictions, including more limitations on the types of guns that can be sold and restrictions on how many guns a licensee can purchase in a given time. Gun rights advocates say the state's gun laws, already the strictest in the country, did not stop the tragedy and the new laws would not have helped. "Actually, it's the other way around," Rostcheck observed. "A letter published January 11th in the Boston Herald revealed that one of the victims [Louis 'Sandy' Javelle] had a New Hampshire concealed carry license, but Massachusetts denied him a reciprocal license here. Ironically, he was actually denied under Cheryl Jacques' law, Chapter 180." And the reason? "None need be given," Rostcheck noted.
 

For more information contact either:
David Rostcheck     617-510-2275     davidr@pinkpistols.org
Doug Krick             617-678-5762     dkrick@pinkpistols.org