{"id":143,"date":"2012-04-02T19:42:12","date_gmt":"2012-04-02T19:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/monachuslex.com\/?p=143"},"modified":"2012-04-02T19:42:12","modified_gmt":"2012-04-02T19:42:12","slug":"permanent-resident-aliens-have-second-amendment-rights-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/monachuslex.com\/?p=143","title":{"rendered":"Permanent resident aliens have second amendment rights too"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In\u00a0Fletcher v. Haas<\/a><\/em>\u00a0[1. \u00a0Fletcher v. Haas (D. Mass. Mar. 30, 2012). \u00a0Available at http:\/\/ia600607.us.archive.org\/23\/items\/gov.uscourts.mad.135876\/gov.uscourts.mad.135876.31.0.pdf<\/a>], the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts held that Permanent resident aliens are included amongst ‘the people’ as the term is used in the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution.<\/p>\n

The individual plaintiffs in this case were Christopher Fletcher and Eoin Pryal,\u00a0two british immigrants who had both been granted permanent resident alien status and who both had significant family, employment and community contacts within the United States. \u00a0Wishing to possess firearms in their own homes, both Fletcher and Pryal completed the\u00a0Massachusetts Basic Firearms Safety Course which is required under Massachusetts law to apply for a firearms identification card.[2. \u00a0M.G.L.A. 140 \u00a7\u00a7 121-131P<\/a>] \u00a0Unlike most states, in Massachusetts, a firearms identification card is required to simply “own, possess, or purchase a firearm, rifle, shotgun or ammunition.”[3. \u00a0Fletcher<\/a> at 2] \u00a0Therefore, any denial of a firearms identification card application is effectively a complete ban on the possession of firearms.<\/p>\n

Here, the applications of both Fletcher and Pryal were denied based upon the citizenship requirement that Massachusetts’ law imposes upon applicants for a firearms identification card.[4. \u00a0M.G.L.A. 140\u00a0\u00a7 129(B)(1)(vii)<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Fletcher and Pryal subsequently raised both equal protection and Second Amendment challenges to the citizenship requirement. \u00a0The Second Amendment challenge was based upon the argument that since the firearms identification card is a pre-requisite to simple possession of a firearm in the home for self-defense, any barrier to acquisition of a firearms identification card touches upon what the Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller<\/em> described as the ‘core’ of the Second Amendment.[5. \u00a0District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008)]<\/p>\n

The court spent quite a bit of time on their analysis of the term ‘the people’. \u00a0Specifically addressing the historical trend of non-citizens petitioning the government for redress of grievances, they noted that “[o]ther rights guaranteed by the Constitution to ‘the people’\u00a0were freely exercised by non-citizens at the time of the\u00a0founding.” \u00a0They went on to point out that the only instance in which the term ‘the people’ was considered by the high court to be synonymous with ‘citizens’ was in the infamous and shameful slavery case of\u00a0Dred Scott v. Sanford<\/em>.[7. \u00a0Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393, 404\u00a0(1856)]<\/p>\n

The court also cited the more recent case of\u00a0United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez<\/em>\u00a0for the proposition that lawful resident aliens “receive constitutional\u00a0protections when they have come within the territory of the United States and developed substantial connections with this\u00a0country.”[8. \u00a0United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez,\u00a0494 U.S. 259 (1990)]<\/p>\n

Having thereby established that aliens with sufficient contacts do generally fall within the constitutional meaning of ‘the people’, they next turned to an analysis of the holding in\u00a0Heller<\/em>\u00a0which the Commonwealth argued could be read to only apply to citizens. \u00a0The court found it illustrative that while the opinion in Heller<\/em>\u00a0did use varying terms including\u00a0\u201ccitizens,\u201d \u201cAmericans,\u201d and \u201claw abiding citizens\u201d throughout, it specifically addressed the question of the scope of the term\u00a0\u201cthe people\u201d and reaffirmed\u00a0Verdugo-Urquidez <\/em>by finding that the term \u201cunambiguously refers to all members of the political community,\u00a0not an unspecified set.\u201d [9. \u00a0Heller at 580]<\/p>\n

The court also did a rather brief analysis of the post-Heller<\/em> level-of-scrutiny holdings. \u00a0However, the court largely avoided this still-contentious area of jurisprudence by stating that the regulation in question, where lawful resident aliens are concerned, does not pass constitutional muster under any possible standard of review.<\/p>\n

And while the court ultimately based its ruling upon the Second Amendment claim, they did briefly touch on the equal protection claim, citing to the\u00a0Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court holding in Finch v. Commonwealth\u00a0<\/em>Health Ins. Connector Auth.<\/em>\u00a0for the broad proposition that “extending fundamental rights to citizens but not to lawful\u00a0permanent resident aliens would present state equal protection\u00a0problems subject to strict scrutiny.” [10. \u00a0Finch v. Commonwealth\u00a0Health Ins. Connector Auth., 959 N.E.2d 970, 984 (Mass. 2012)]<\/p>\n

One final note of interest for future cases is the fact that, while the issue raised in Fletcher<\/em> was only firearm identification cards, the final judgment order enjoined enforcement of any citizenship limitation in the issuance of any firearms permits.[11. \u00a0See\u00a0http:\/\/ia700607.us.archive.org\/23\/items\/gov.uscourts.mad.135876\/gov.uscourts.mad.135876.32.0.pdf<\/a>]<\/p>\n

“Enforcement of Massachusetts General Laws chapter 140,
\nsections 121-131P against Plaintiffs solely on the basis of their
\npermanent resident alien status is declared to be in violation of
\nthe Second Amendment to the United States Constitution and the
\nDefendants are hereby enjoined from denying Plaintiffs Fletcher and
\nPryal any firearm permits or licenses on that basis.”<\/p>\n

This broad statement not only invalidates the citizenship limitation on the issuance of firearms identification cards for in-the-home purchase and possession but also for the issuance of Class A and Class B carry permits. \u00a0[12. \u00a0M.G.L.A. 140\u00a0\u00a7 131(d)(v)<\/a>]<\/p>\n

While Massachusetts still remains one of the more heavily regulated states in regards to gun-rights, this decision is rightly seen as a major victory for law-abiding gun owners nationwide.<\/p>\n

Once again, we owe a great debt of thanks to the Second Amendment Foundation<\/a> for taking the fight to the courts across the nation. \u00a0Please give generously<\/a>\u00a0so they may continue this vital work.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Footnotes<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In\u00a0Fletcher v. Haas\u00a0[1. \u00a0Fletcher v. Haas (D. Mass. Mar. 30, 2012). \u00a0Available at http:\/\/ia600607.us.archive.org\/23\/items\/gov.uscourts.mad.135876\/gov.uscourts.mad.135876.31.0.pdf], the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts held that Permanent resident aliens are included amongst ‘the people’ as the term is used in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,84,85,86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-massachusetts","category-resident-aliens","category-saf-litigation","category-second-amendment-case-law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/monachuslex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/monachuslex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/monachuslex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monachuslex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monachuslex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/monachuslex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/monachuslex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monachuslex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monachuslex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}