The otherwise intolerant and intolerable State of Massachusetts amended its firearms laws over the summer. It might have been the heat (more likely the lawsuits) that inspired them, but they managed to cough up H4885, “An Act modernizing firearm laws.” Aside from being an overly long mess, it allows nonresidents to travel through the state armed without a Massachusetts license to carry.
1302 (k) A nonresident may carry a firearm on their person while in a vehicle lawfully traveling through the commonwealth; provided, however, that the firearm shall remain in the vehicle and if the firearm is outside its owner’s direct control it shall be stored in the vehicle in accordance with section 131C.
You do not need to register your firearm if you are just traveling through the state but with plenty of downsides. You cannot exit the vehicle armed. Period. And if the gun must be under your direct control per Chapter 140 131C.
(a) No person carrying a loaded firearm under a license issued pursuant to section 131 or 131F shall carry the loaded firearm in a vehicle unless the loaded firearm while carried in the vehicle is under the direct control of the person. Whoever violates this subsection shall be punished by a fine of $500.
You cannot exit the vehicle to get gas, use a bathroom, or for any other reason, and at no time may the firearm be out of your control.
Massachusetts law does prescribe how a firearm out of your control is to be secured (Chapter 140 131L). Still, I would not rely on that as an acceptable solution should a nonresident need to exit a vehicle because it is not cited in H4885.
In other words, this appears to be a response to recent incidents where NH residents were charged for carrying firearms on their person while in their vehicles. The change is likely meant to prevent that case from elevating outside the gun grabber’s control, where it might find a sympathetic Supreme Court recognizing reciprocity nationwide. Can you imagine the outrage? Wild West, Blood in the Streets.
Or it might just be a legislature full of Democrats giving nonresident gun owners a tiny trap-ridden bone. Where are you going if you can’t get out (of the car) in the Bay State? New York, Rhode Island, Connecticut. And you can’t use the firearm. Massachusetts is one of those states that will accommodate the Second Amendment because it has to, but not any actual exercise of the right to self-defense (and you’d have to exercise it from inside the vehicle, and they’d arrest you anyway)
In other words, if you find yourself in the state by accident or are just dropping someone off (at the airport), you don’t have to worry about whether you happen to be carrying as long as you leave the state before stepping out of the vehicle or defending yourself.
Otherwise, it’s just a trap.
H4885 was signed into law in late July.
