Gun rights groups are already weighing in on a legal case involving a New Hampshire man charged with possessing a firearm without a valid Massachusetts license to carry, and now New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella is adding his voice to the growing chorus defending two New Hampshire residents from Bay State prosecutors. 

Earlier this year a Massachusetts judge sided with Dean Donnell and Phillip Marquis, dismissing the charges against the two men and ruling that lawful gun owners don't give up their right to keep and bear arms "simply by traveling into an adjoining state whose statute mandates that residents of that state obtain a license prior to exercising their constitutional right." To hold otherwise, Lowell District Court Justice John F. Coffey argued, would mean treating the Second Amendment as a second-class right. 

Prosecutors have appealed Coffey's dismissal of the cases to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, which is where Formella (as well as groups like the Second Amendment Foundation and the NRA) filed an amicus brief in support of Coffey's decision. 

“By challenging Massachusetts’ restrictive firearm laws, we are affirming that constitutional freedoms should not be undermined by inconsistent and overly burdensome regulations,” Formella said in a statement. “This is all about ensuring that responsible gun owners can protect themselves without fear of unjust legal consequences when they cross state borders.”

New Hampshire is an open carry state, meaning any resident who’s able to legally own a firearm can carry one without a license or permit. Because travel between the two states is frequent, Formella said, Granite Staters and other non-Massachusetts residents shouldn’t face felony consequences for carrying a gun while visiting there.

Massachusetts’ temporary firearm licensing requirement includes an extensive vetting process of state, federal, fingerprint-based and mental health background checks. It costs $100 to apply and can take up to 90 days to receive the permit. Massachusetts also requires non-resident temporary license holders to attend a basic safety course. These be can renewed every year.

In their brief, NRA and SAF argued that even with a temporary carry license, non-residents aren't allowed to carry a firearm for the purposes of self-defense. Massachusetts contends, however, that non-residents can lawfully bear arms in self-defense with a temporary permit, and that it's only non-resident aliens who can only possess a firearm for the purposes of competitive shooting with a valid temporary carry permit. 

Even if the state theoretically allows non-residents to carry with a temporary license, as Formella points out in his brief, it's completely impractical for non-residents to apply for and receive a temporary permit, especially for New Hampshire residents living close to the border between the two states, who may travel across state lines on a daily basis to work, shop, and entertain themselves in Massachusetts. 

“Strict application of Massachusetts’ firearm statutes imposes on many New Hampshire citizens, particularly those living close to the border with Massachusetts, something of a Hobbesian choice: lay down your right to armed self-defense upon entry into Massachusetts or face felony charges that carry harsh penalties and mandatory imprisonment,” Formella wrote in the brief.

He also argues there’s no historical tradition of prosecuting out-of-state visitors under a state’s firearm laws. In the appeal filing, the district attorney for Middlesex County asserted that Massachusetts has the authority to enforce its laws on anyone within its borders and the Commonwealth need not bow down to New Hampshire’s policies.

Massachusetts doesn't require non-residents to obtain a special license before they can attend church in Boston or make a purchase from the Andover Bookstore. You don't have to have a temporary license in order to exercise your Fourth Amendment rights once you cross the state line. Virtually every other enumerated right remains intact when non-residents visit the state. It's only the right to keep and bear arms that disappears.  

The state of Massachusetts can place restrictions on the manner and places where firearms can be lawfully carried (within constitutional limits, mind you), but no state should have the power and authority to negate the exercise of a fundamental civil right by non-residents or predicate it on the possession of an expensive and difficult to obtain permit. That's simply not how we treat every other enumerated right found in the Constitution. Whether the Supreme Judicial Court agrees is another question entirely, but I'm glad to see New Hampshire's AG is siding with gun owners and standing up for the right to keep and bear arms.