The city of Lowell, MA, and its police chief have one. It’s dead wrong, too. The city’s new law, pushed by its Police Superintendent, William Taylor,
requires residents applying for a license to carry handguns to write “an essay” and pay upwards of $1,100 for training.
Aside from the outlandish cost being just another means of denying licenses to American citizens (training required in Texas, for instance, costs around $300), there’s this, from police department spokesman, Captain Timothy Crowley:
If you want a license to carry a firearm unrestricted wherever you want and whenever you want, the superintendent is just looking for some documentation as to why. That is not unreasonable to most people.
Yes, it is unreasonable to most people. It’s also wholly and cynically unconstitutional. Here’s what the 2nd Amendment says on the matter:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Notice that. There’s nothing in there that says, “Shall not be infringed unless Government disapproves the man’s reason.” There’s nothing in there that even grants Government a right to ask, much less to know, a citizen’s reason to keep and bear his Arms. Just for clarity’s sake, too, the Supreme Court has ruled that this is entirely an individual right, and not a collective one.
No. The only legitimate way to require licenses to keep and bear is, after training, on a will issue basis.
Full stop.