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The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today that a Supreme Court decision last year that lets people pack guns for protection outside the home means it has no choice but to overturn a Boston man's conviction for the gun and bullets Boston and Watertown police found in his glove box - but the court upheld his 2 1/2 to 3-year sentence for one of the magazines they also found.

The ruling does not strike down the Massachusetts gun-control law, one of the strictest in the nation, but means prosecutors will have to present evidence that somebody they are prosecuting broke the law by not getting a permit for the weapon. Before today's decision, it was up to defendants to prove they had a license - prosecutors did not have prove that they did not have one.

In Carlos Guardado's case, which stems from his 2019 arrest in the parking lot of an auto-parts store on Arsenal Street in Watertown, prosecutors did not present evidence that Guardado had a license for the silver handgun or several bullets, which police found after being tipped off by an informant who knew him, because up until last year's Supreme Court decision, Massachusetts law mostly considered guns illegal in the absence of a license, which left the proof burden up to defendants.

The state's highest court concluded that when the Supreme Court specifically stated that carrying a gun outside the home for personal protection was a Constitutional right, it shifted the courtroom evidence balance - Massachusetts defendants should not have to prove anything in court about a gun they're found with, instead, it is up to prosecutors to prove defendants did something wrong, which in Massachusetts means failing to register a gun.

The Commonwealth may impose licensing requirements upon the possession of firearms, but in enforcing those requirements, it must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a defendant failed to comply with them.

The court continued, however, that the Supreme Court's decision only applied to guns that somebody could use for personal protection, and that large-capacity magazines don't fit that definition.

We previously have held that G. L. c. 140, 131M, a statute that proscribes possession of large capacity feeding devices, "is not prohibited by the Second Amendment, because the right [to bear arms] 'does not protect those weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes.'" Cassidy, 479 Mass. at 540.

The court rejected arguments by Guardado's attorney that all the charges should be tossed in part because even Massachusetts law allows somebody to have a gun at his place of business and because the warrantless search that led to the discovery of the gun violated his Fourth Amendment rights.

The court concluded that although Guardado was arrested in the parking lot of the auto-parts store where he worked, the parking lot was shared with a neighboring company and there was nothing marking off any part of the lot as just for auto-parts customers and workers, so it wasn't technically part of his workplace.

The court also found that the police from either side of the Charles had enough reason for an emergency search of Guardado's car based on the tip from an informant who had provided correct information in the past to Boston Police and who gave specific enough information about Guardado's car and gun to look for the weapon, even if it was in the glove compartment rather than the backpack the informant said it was in.

The court added that because they were responding to a gun control, a Watertown detective had the right to pat frisk Guardado out of fear he might have a weapon on him that he could use against officers.

Originally posted here:
Court says way Boston man was convicted on illegal gun and ammo ... - Universal Hub

A Lincoln High School student was hit and bloodied in the back of the head with a wooden sign-holder during a gun violence protest Wednesday, after he staged a counter-demonstration in favor of the Second Amendment, police and school officials said.

Sgt. Kevin Allen, a spokesperson for the Portland Police Bureau, said the 15-year-old was treated at the downtown Portland protest for a cut on his head and later received further medical treatment. In a message sent Thursday, Lincoln High School principal Peyton Chapman wrote that the student eventually went to the emergency room and got stitches but was able to return to school the following day.

Allen said the suspected assailants left the scene and were not immediately located.

The descriptions were not very detailed, but its safe to say they were young people, Allen wrote in an email Friday. He said police dont know whether the attacker or attackers were enrolled in Portland Public Schools.

About 175 Lincoln High students walked out of school on Wednesday to take part in the protests, joining students at other middle and high schools around Portland. It was part of a national action after a series of school shootings this year, including one at a private Christian school outside of Nashville, Tennessee that left three children and three adults dead.

Lincolns principal wrote in a message to staff that several other students quickly intervened to try to stop the fight and that she did not believe the assailant was a Lincoln student.

In her communication, Chapman acknowledged that there were rumors about the incident and added, The bottom line is all students deserve to be safe from any form of hate speech and/or physical or verbal attack.

There have been six gun-related incidents near Portland-area high school campuses so far this school year, including two near Jefferson High School, one near Cleveland High School, two near Franklin High School, and one at a Troutdale park adjacent to Reynolds High School. Additionally, two Portland high school students were shot and killed over spring break in a daylight shooting in North Portland.

Leaders of Portland Public Schools have been holding focus groups on whether to bring back school resource officers, after removing them in June of 2020, at the height of the Black Lives Matter protests. A proposal is expected early next month.

Julia Silverman, @jrlsilverman, jsilverman@oregonian.com

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Portland high school student demonstrating in favor of 2nd Amendment injured at gun violence protest - OregonLive

Iowans could keep guns in their locked cars in the parking lots of schools, city and county buildings, state universities and prisons, under a bill passed Wednesday by the Iowa House.

Lawmakers approved House File 654 on a vote of 62-37 after two hours of emotional debate. Most Republicans voted yes but two Reps. Gary Mohr, R-Bettendorf, and Chad Ingels, R-Randalia joined Democrats in voting no.

The bill must still pass the Iowa Senate before it can become law.

It's the latest expansion of gun rights by the Republican-controlled Iowa Legislature, which has passed several laws loosening or repealing gun regulations in recent years, including a 2021 law eliminating the requirement for Iowans to have a permit to carry or possess handguns.

And it comes on the heels of recent mass shootings that have rocked the nation when a gunman killed 5 people in a Louisville bank one day after Easter Sunday and a former student shot dead three children and three adults March 27 at a parochial school in Nashville.

Last fall, Iowa voters approved adding a Republican-backed amendment to the state constitution protecting the right "to keep and bear arms" and adding language that goes beyond the protections in the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment. The measure passed 65% to 35%.

"I do think this comes down to trusting free men and women," said Rep. Steven Holt, R-Denison. "And that is what the Second Amendment is about, that is what the Bill of Rights is about, that is what our whole country and our constitution are predicated upon trusting free men and women to conduct themselves responsibly."

Throughout the debate, Democrats spoke passionately about mass shootings around the country, and school shootings in Iowa. They said the bill won't protect student safety.

"This bill puts guns closer to our kids, to our teachers, to our school staff and to our schools," said Rep. Sue Cahill, D-Marshalltown, a retired public school teacher. "How can we let this happen? We need to support gun safety."

Iowans who have a permit to carry handguns would be allowed to have a gun in their car while in school driveways or parking lots if they're dropping off or picking up a student or school staff member. While the 2021 law eliminated the requirement for a permit, many Iowans still apply for them.

The gun would have to remain locked in the car if the person leaves their vehicle, according to the bill.

"This is a school safety issue," said Rep. Josh Turek, D-Council Bluffs. "More guns on school property is just not an intelligent decision. Lets keep our children safe. Lets keep our schools safe. Lets keep our schools gun-free zones."

Holt said the people who would be allowed to have guns in their cars on school grounds would only be those with a valid permit to carry handguns meaning they've passed a background check and undergone training.

"None of the school shootings that Im aware of that have taken place involved a parent with a permit to carry or an educator with a permit to carry going up to a school to drop off their loved ones and just suddenly deciding to commit violence," Holt said. "All of these things were premediated and were because of mental illness."

Guns and other weapons would not be allowed in school vehicles that carry students, except in cases when the school district has a policy of allowing staff members to carry guns. At least two school districts in Iowa, Spirit Lake and Cherokee, have approved such policies.

The bill would say insurers cannot refuse to insure school districts based solely on whether the district has a policy allowing school staff to be armed.

The bill would also allow any Iowan who can legally carry a firearm to keep a lawfully-owned gun in their car in parking lots on state, city or county-owned property if the gun remains out of sight in a locked vehicle.

That includes those without permits to carry handguns.

Some of the public areas that would be affected by the bill include the state Supreme Court building, state parks, state prisons, jails, some Little League parks, the governor's mansion at Terrace Hill, libraries, county fairgrounds and city pools, according to an analysis by House Republican staffers.

Community colleges and the state's three public universities would not be allowed to adopt policies that stop people from carrying or keeping guns in a locked personal vehicle on the institution's grounds, as long as the weapon is not visible from outside the vehicle.

The bill would also protect the Iowa Board of Regents and community college boards from lawsuits stemming from allowing guns on the institutions' grounds.

It eliminates the state's ban on firearms at casinos and would instead allow each casino to set their own policy about whether weapons are allowed on the premises.

Holt said he's more comfortable when law-abiding Iowans can carry firearms because "the bad guys don't care what the law says."

"I do feel more comfortable when law-abiding citizens are allowed to carry a firearm," he said. "I feel very, very vulnerable in a gun-free zone because I know that mentally ill individuals who have decided to commit violence against other human beings dont care what the law is. And that a gun-free zone becomes a shooting gallery."

An earlier version of the legislation required guns to be allowed in the parking lots of private businesses as well, but Republicans removed that portion of the bill before passing the measure.

"This amended bill protects businesses, but it doesnt protect children," Cahill said. "This bill allows casinos to decide what their policy will be for their gun law enforcement, but it doesnt let schools decide the places that care for your children, your grandchildren, your neighbors, your constituents."

Democrats spoke emotionally in opposition to the legislation during House debate Wednesday.

They mentioned mass shootings around the country, including the March 27 shooting at The Covenant School, a private Christian school in Nashville and recent school shootings in Des Moines at East High School in 2022 and at Starts Right Here, an alternative education program, in January.

"Parents and children and teachers shouldnt have to live in fear," said Rep. Lindsay James, D-Dubuque. "Every year, the principal at my kids elementary school sends me an email informing me that my child, my 9- and 13-year-old, just rehearsed an active shooter drill. And every school year I wonder if I should buy a bulletproof backpack."

Rep. J.D. Scholten, D-Sioux City, told a story about a friend of his who was shot and killed, criticizing the bill's provision that would let people keep guns in cars on college campuses.

"I have to give credit where credit is due," Scholten said. "This bill, the level of not giving a s--- is impressive."

Scholten's comment prompted a point of order and a reprimand from Rep. John Wills, R-Spirit Lake, who was presiding over the debate.

"The decorum in this room, in this body, will be maintained," Wills said. "There will be no more outbursts, no more swearing, no more throwing microphones down. This building, this room is a place to do legislative business."

Lawmakers also added new language about schools providing age-appropriate firearm safety training to students in kindergarten through 12th grade.

The training for students in kindergarten through sixth grade would be based on the National Rifle Association's "Eddie Eagle" program, which instructs children not to touch a gun and to immediately tell an adult.

The training for students in seventh through 12th grade would be based on the NRA's hunter education course.

"We have a lot of young people in our schools now that are being confronted and finding guns in lockers," said Rep. Ako Abdul-Samad, D-Des Moines. "We have young people going into parks and finding guns. And at some point we have to take a stand and say, 'Hey, how do we educate our children?'"

Stephen Gruber-Miller covers the Iowa Statehouse and politics for the Register. He can be reached by email atsgrubermil@registermedia.comor by phone at 515-284-8169. Follow him on Twitter at@sgrubermiller.

The rest is here:
Iowa House passes gun bill to expand where Iowans could bring them - Des Moines Register

Harvey Schmidts letter is correct and timely (Originalism and the Second Amendment, Opinion, April 12). Patriots Day in Massachusetts celebrates the birth of the Second Amendment on April 19, 1775, when well-regulated militias (known to history as the Minutemen) gathered in Lexington and Concord to stop the English soldiers from taking their guns and ammunition. The English Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith had received orders to march with utmost expedition and secrecy to Concord, where you will seize and destroy ... all military stores. In 1789, only 14 years after the battles of Lexington and Concord, Congress approved the Bill of Rights which included what we now know as the Second Amendment. When the Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution in 1791, surely many living veterans of the war were remembering that April day in Massachusetts when they ensured that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Schmidt is correct to point out that the founders original intent in formulating the Second Amendment was far different from the distorted version of the amendment currently promoted by gun advocates and their commercial sponsors. The founders also recognized the need for citizens to be well regulated when exercising their right to bear arms. Lets remember that on this Patriots Day.

David Coulter

Excerpt from:
Observing Patriots Day and well-regulated militias - The Boston Globe

During the month of April at the Anxious Bench, a number of our columnists are participating in a joint collaboration with theAACC (Asian American Christian Collaborative)to draw attention to the history of gun violence in the United States. Since the shootings in Buffalo, Laguna Woods, and Uvalde, the AACC has been a crucial Christian organization that is actively pursuing advocacy and policy efforts to address gun violence in the United States, and the Anxious Bench is proud to partner with them to raise awareness about the long and terrible history of gun violence in the United States.

Second amendment rights is about protecting white supremacy.

The right to possess a firearm long has been considered a sacred idol in the history of the United States. While this right has been enshrined in our constitutions Bill of Rights as the second amendment, this does not mean that every inhabitant has had this right during our long history. Rather, when Europeans first arrived and others were forcibly brought to America, white colonists intentionally withheld firearms from people thought to be a viable threat to civil society. You see, among the vital technologies of Empire, guns were among the most formative technologies employed to gain and maintain European, Christian, and White power.

When the Spanish first arrived on the Yucatan peninsula in the sixteenth century, the arquebus (a primitive firearm), though entirely ineffective as an accurate and precise lethal weapon, was still very useful to instill fear and intimidation in Mayan and Aztec inhabitants during Cortezs 1519 conquest of the Yucatan. The loud and smoking weapon confused Amerindians on the battle field. The combination of armor, steel weaponry, horse, war dogs, and crossbow bolts proved to be the more effective components for colonizers to subdue native inhabitants in Mesoamerica. Nonetheless, when a bullet did effectively rip through the flesh of a foe, it instilled as much terror then as an AR-15 in a school shooting today.

As primitive firearm technology improved into a more effective, accurate, and precise lethal weapon in the seventeenth century, both the French and Dutch brought muskets for use in the fur trade and the beaver wars that shaped much of Amerindian life, beginning in 1609. The French supplied their Huron allies with muskets to make it more efficient for them to harvest beaver pellets, and the Dutch supplied their Iroquois allies with muskets in order to slay the Huron and steal those same beaver pellets. Though microbial pathogens played their role in wiping out Amerindians across the Eastern Woodlands to the Great Lakes basin, the gun trade played its role in Indian on Indian genocidal acts of gun violence, no different than how Whites have apathetically viewed black on black gang violence in predominantly black communities during the latter twentieth and early twenty-first century.

British colonists, those people from whom the United States derived its hegemony of heritage, maintained a gun policy that differentiated its colonies from its French Catholic imperial neighbors to the North and the Dutch interlopers in what is now described as the middle colonies of colonial America. Particularly in New England, colonial laws prohibited the sale of firearms to Amerindians. Heavy fines were given to those colonists who breached these laws. Arming Amerindians meant they might turn those firearms against their colonizers and attempt to overthrow their power. This almost occurred in 1675 when Metacom (notoriously known as King Philip) mustered a strategic alliance of Wampanoag, Narragansett, and Nipmuc to wage genocidal war against New England colonists. Twelve New England villages were razed and over 1,000 colonial militia were killed in this war (10% of the male-adult population).

In the same year Metacom attempted to wipe out New England colonists, Nathaniel Bacon attempted the same sort of policy against Amerindians in the Chesapeake. He mustered a body of common planter militia in Virginia to go on a genocidal rampage through the Chesapeake frontier. His aim was to clear the frontier for Westward moving colonists to possess new lands for tobacco fields. His rebellion against Governor William Berkely set the stage for the second amendment, for as a result of this rebellion, the British brought its first standing army of British regulars to the colonies and continued a policy of Royal military presence that would continue until the conclusion of the American Revolution.

Besides preventing Amerindians from getting their hands on firearms, the other class of people British colonists feared possessing firearms were slaves. Colonial militia existed for multiple functions. Their first function was to protect colonial villages from Amerindian attacks. Another function was to protect the colony from other Imperial foes, such as the French, Dutch, or the Spanish. However, its often conveniently overlooked that the colonial militias primary and routine function was to regularly patrol roadways and the wilderness for runaway slaves, who were forming maroon communities, and to routinely raid plantation slave quarters to search and seize contraband possessions, especially weapons or poison that might be employed for insurrection purposes.

Southern colonial British Indian policy to keep the Natives dispossessed from firearms altered in the latter seventeenth century as the proportion of slaves exceeded the number of whites in Souther colonies. At this time, Amerindians inhabiting lands in the southern colonies were incentivized to turn over runaway slaves to the British. They were offered a gun and two blankets if they returned a slave to the colonists. This innovative policy effectively pitted Amerindians against slaves, so they did not unite in an insurrection and revolt against the minority whites in power throughout the Southern colonies. Its fine when othered people eviscerate one another with lethal firearms, but when they turn them against those in power, it becomes intolerable.

You see, ingrained in the historical memory of our nation is the notion that some people had the right to possess firearms and others ought to be deprived of that right. Firearms ought to be possessed by property owners who defended their property. Firearms could only be possessed by citizens. If others possessed firearms, it was to the advantage of those in power. Firearm possession, historically, was a racialized phenomenon.

Unless it furthered the purpose of white power, it was undesirable for Amerindians to possess firearms, for that made it more difficult to progressively dispossess them of their property across the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Once African-Americans possessed the right of citizenship, they then had the right to possess firearms. Thus, it was crucial to create a system of mass incarceration in order to continue to deprive them of their right to firearms. In other words, gun policy and citizenship held hands in a symbiotic effort to protect white supremacy.

The crisis of domestic terrorism from mass and school shootings is so terrifying for many U. S. citizens because it is also a racialized phenomenon. The preponderance of shootings that occur are perpetrated by young, white menthe kind of people who have historically had the right to possess firearms. Protecting and maintaining this right is one of the symbols of historic white supremacy that can yet be preserved.

Sure enough, firearm possession has been democratized as much as suffrage. However, the true fear concerning forsaking second amendment rights is the disempowering effect it has for white men. The powers that differentiated and maintained white male supremacy have been progressively altered throughout the course of U. S. history. Political policy through Supreme Court rulings, legislative law, or executive orders has democratized voting, occupations, and education for people of every race and gender. The second amendment is one of the last vestiges of white power to remain unaltered. While many people think and argue that preserving this right is about protecting the right to sports, like marksmanship or hunting, or preserving the right to defend ones home, in reality, the unspoken reason is that this right is symbolic of the sacred idol of white supremacy in our history.

Altering this law is an admission that white men no longer have the power to protect their lives from others who threaten them, and they no longer have the right to manipulate gun policy to protect their power, or, when all else fails, to take the lives of those they historically despised as heathens or oppressed as slaves. Forsaking second amendment rights also moves our society one step closer to giving up another sacred idol of white supremacy, the power to illegally or legally and lethally apply capital punishment to others, for those who predominantly have been illegally lynched or legally executed in America have been the others: witches, pirates, Amerindians, slaves, communists, or anyone else othered by society.

Ask yourself: What appears to be the tipping point? Has it been mass shootings of black on black gang violence in South Chicago? Has it been a school mass shooting against a predominantly latino community in Uvalde? Has it been a mass shooting against the Asian community in California? When did white suburban people organize against gun violence in recent time? And when did black state representatives get expelled due to political organization against gun violence?

Ill say it once again. Sadly, second amendment rights has been and is still about protecting white supremacy.

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Second Amendment Rights Is About Protecting White Supremacy - Patheos