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MA: New law eases restrictions on gun owners
Josey1
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SENTINEL & ENTERPRISE / ROBERT BURNS, Basic pistol instructor Christie Caywood displays her SigSauer P239 9 mm handgun in her Leominster home Thursday.
New law eases restrictions on gun owners
By Lisa Guerriero lguerriero@sentinelandenterprise.com
Lawmakers and gun advocates say several new reforms will make it easier for responsible Massachusetts citizens to own guns.
Christie Caywood of Leominster believes the law, which extends the duration of a gun license and eases other rules, is a victory for the right to bear arms.
Caywood may not be everyone's idea of the stereotypical gun owner.
"A friend of mine in college took me to the (shooting) range during finals -- a bit of a stress reliever," Caywood said. "I signed up for the range that night."
Caywood has owned her SIG P239 handgun for three-and-a-half years and hopes to purchase a shotgun soon.
After living in Virginia and Oklahoma for most of her life, Caywood was shocked at the restrictions on gun owners in Massachusetts.
She was upset to learn during college that she wasn't allowed to have a handgun on campus to protect herself.
Jim Wallace, the legislative representative for Gun Owners' Action League (GOAL) of Massachusetts, said the new law is a step in the right direction.
"The bill is not perfect by any means, but it's a step in the right direction," Wallace said.
The law extends the length of the license from four years to six years. It offers a 90-day grace period to carry a gun while the owner waits for a license renewal to be processed.
The law also creates a license review board that can reinstate ownership status to those who have lost their licenses after committing certain non-violent misdemeanors.
"There were many injustices in past laws on people who got into minor scrapes 20 years ago," said state Sen. Stephen Brewer, D-Barre, who championed the reforms that made the law more flexible for gun owners. "In the true sense of the word, that kind of punitive law is not making our streets any safer."
Wallace said he knows one senior citizen who loves to hunt and wanted to teach his grandchildren, but couldn't because he was in a bar fight in 1947.
The man had lost his license in 1998, when stricter gun control laws were enacted.
Gov. Mitt Romney approved the law Thursday.
Richard Freel, a 64-year-old Clinton resident, is the secretary of the Leominster Sportsmen's Association on Elm Street.
The club has about 500 Leominster members, about 150 Fitchburg members and roughly 350 members from other communities.
Freel said he has a friend who doesn't qualify for a gun license under the old laws because of a minor arrest when he was 17. The review board is an improvement, he said.
But Freel, a sport shooter, said the new law is not as progressive as it first seems.
"What they're really doing is fixing the mistakes they made in '98," Freel said.
Claude Vezina of Leominster hunts and shoots for sport at the Sportsmen's Association. Vezina agreed the new law is an attempt to correct the mistakes of the 1998 rules.
"The original laws they had were sufficient without all these new laws," said Vezina, 58. "Enforce the laws we had."
Caywood said protecting gun ownership is her top civic priority.
She founded the Second Amendment Sisters at her all-female alma mater, Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, and she now belongs to the North Leominster Rod and Gun Club.
Caywood enjoys sport shooting at the club's range and fields, and she also keeps her gun for protection. She said has taken self-defense courses and carries pepper spray, but her handgun would "also be a tool for protection if necessary."
The new law is sometimes called an anti-assault weapon ban because it continues a federal law prohibiting certain semi-automatic weapons, including the Uzi, the Mac-10 and the AK-47.
The federal law is due to expire in September, and state lawmakers hoped to extend it in Massachusetts.
Wallace said GOAL opposes the ban because it prevents residents from owning guns like a Remington 1100 shotgun. The weapon "looks mean," but is often used for duck-hunting, he said.
"We certainly don't agree with (the ban) because it wastes a lot of time going after specific weapons, not crime," Wallace said.
Brewer said his constituents in towns like Ashburnham deserve the loosened rules on gun owners.
Guns are used for sport shooting, hunting and managing wildlife in his rural communities, he said.
"This is for the law-abiding average citizen," he said.
The law makes other small changes, including changing the size of the license to carry so it matches a driver's license and fits in a wallet.
http://www.sentinelandenterprise.com/Stories/0,1413,106~4994~2255639,00.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878<P>
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