(GunReports.com) — A Federal District Court Judge in Massachusetts today granted summary judgment in a Second Amendment Foundation case challenging that state’s denial of firearms licenses to permanent resident aliens.
U.S. District Court Judge Douglas P. Woodcock concluded that “…the Massachusetts firearms regulatory regime as applied to the individual plaintiffs, contravenes the Second Amendment.”
The case involves two Massachusetts residents, Christopher Fletcher and Eoin Pryal, whose applications for licenses to possess firearms in their homes for immediate self-defense purposes were denied under a state law that does not allow non-citizens to own handguns. SAF was joined in the case by Commonwealth Second Amendment, Inc. and the two individual plaintiffs. The case is Fletcher v. Haas.
“This is our fourth court victory this month in our campaign to win back firearms freedoms one lawsuit at a time,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb. “It is one more step toward repairing decades of Second Amendment erosion.”
In his 41-page ruling, Judge Woodcock wrote, “The Massachusetts firearms regulatory regime, as applied to Fletcher and Pryal, does not pass constitutional muster regardless of whether intermediate scrutiny or strict scrutiny applies…The possibility that some resident aliens are unsuited to possess a handgun does not justify a wholesale ban.”
