A serious drug offense is also any drug offense under Massachusetts General Law Chapter 94C involving the manufacture, distribution or possession with intent to manufacture or distribute a controlled substance, that carries a prison sentence of ten years or more.
If your LTC firearm was revoked/suspended, you need a lawyer that knows the ins and outs of this specialized area of law. You need an attorney that has handled ammunitions and firearms cases for clients in the past. Just look at some of our firearms case results. No matter where you are located in Massachusetts, expert legal help is just a phone call away.
Under Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 269 section 12E it is a crime for a person to discharge a firearm, rifle, or shotgun within 500 feet of a dwelling or building in use without the consent of the owner or legal occupant. Live ammunition isn’t required as firing blank rounds from a starter pistol at a neighbor’s house is considered discharging a firearm under the law.
Firearm licenses are valid for 6 years. You must submit a request with your local police department for a renewal prior to the expiration date of your current license. Your local police department will do a criminal background check to see if you have been charged or found guilty of a criminal offense since LTC was allowed.
It is very difficult to overturn a police chief’s decision to suspend or revoke a license to carry a firearm. A police chief has broad discretion or considerable latitude to issue a firearms carrying license. In order to overturn a police chief’s suspension or revocation on an LTC the gun owner must prove that police chief had no reasonable ground for suspending or revoking the license. To prove this the applicant must show that the refusal to grant the license was arbitrary, capricious or an abuse of discretion.
Compared to the rest of the country, Massachusetts has strict gun-control laws. There are several firearm offenses dealing with illegal possession or transport of certain weapons, most notably firearms.
M.G.L.A c. 269 section 10I makes it a crime to transport a firearm into the Massachusetts from another state in order to commit criminal activity or to unlawfully distribute, sell or transfer possession to prohibited person. The penalties are very stiff and depend on the facts.
The law only applies to LOADED FIREARMS and applies to police and state officials and anyone licensed to carry a weapon. When prosecuting someone for carrying a loaded firearm while under the influence of intoxicating liquor (FUI), the Commonwealth must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant’s consumption of alcohol diminished his ability to safely carry a loaded firearm on his person or have one under his control in a vehicle. Someone can be found guilty of carrying a loaded firearm in a motor vehicle while intoxicated and innocent of operating a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol.
Anyone with a Class A License to Carry (LTC) in Massachusetts is permitted to possess large capacity weapons. A large capacity weapon is anything capable of firing over ten rounds of ammunition without have to stop and reload.
The Massachusetts gun storage law is governed by M.G.L 131L section (a). It is a crime in Massachusetts to store a firearm in a place that is not “secured in a locked container or equipped with a tamper-resistant mechanical lock or other safety device.”
The law doesn’t require a gun owner to keep the secured container in a secure location, so a firearm that is placed in a secured tamper proof lock box and then placed inside a cooler and brought along during a hunting trip meets the legal requirement. In this example the firearm is secured in a locked container which is sufficient even though the cooler in which the locked container is place isn’t secure by itself.
Criminal Penalties For Illegal Transportation of Loaded Firearm in a Vehicle Under Massachusetts Law. Penalties vary for Class A, Class B and large capacity firearms ranging from a $500 to $5,000 fine.
The unlawful possession of a large capacity firearm is a crime governed by M.G.L 269 section 10 (m). A conviction for unlawfully carrying of a large capacity firearm results in minimum 2 ½ years in state prison but not more than ten years in state prison. If a defendant has a valid FID card at the time of an arrest for possession of a large capacity firearm then the penalty for a conviction will range from a minimum of 1 year to a maximum of 10 years in a state prison…
Possession of a firearm and possession of a loaded firearm are two separate crimes. As a result a conviction for both crimes will result in separate penalties. After a defendant has served time for a conviction of unlawfully possessing a firearm they then have to serve time for the other crime of unlawfully possessing a loaded firearm. The additional penalty for carrying a loaded firearm will result in a sentence of no more than 2 ½ years in the house of corrections.
Often times the passenger in a car will be charged with possession of a firearm even though they didn’t own the firearm and weren’t holding it. In situations where a firearm has been placed under the front seat of a car or in the center console police might charge every passenger in the car with possession of the firearm. However, in order to get a conviction the prosecutor will have to prove that the defendant knew that the firearm was under the seat or in the center console, the defendant had the ability to get control of it and that the defendant intended to get control of it.
The unlawful possession of ammunition is a crime governed by M.G.L 269 section 10 (h). This law makes the unlawful carrying of ammunition a criminal offense that is punishable by up to two years in the house of corrections or a fine of up to $500.
It is a crime in Massachusetts to deface or alter the serial number on a firearm. The defacement or altering of a firearm’s serial number is a crime governed by M.G.L 269 section 11 (c). A conviction for defacing a firearm’s serial number results in minimum sentence of 1 month but no more than 2 ½ years in the house of corrections and a $200 fine.
A conviction for defacing a firearm’s serial number results in minimum sentence of 1 month but no more than 2 ½ years in the house of corrections and a $200 fine.
The state of Massachusetts has some of the strictest, and most complicated, gun laws in the entire U.S., and imposes severe penalties on people caught illegally possessing firearms, as well as for any type of controlled deadly weapon.
If you have any gun or rifle in your possession you must have a Firearms Identification (FID) card for the weapon. Failure to produce and FID card when asked to by the police could expose you a to a minimum jail term of 18 months. ..
Section 129B. Firearm identification cards; conditions and restrictions. Massachusetts gun laws; possession, gun registration, and identification cards for hand guns, shot guns, rifles, and other firearms.