Author arrested in MA

This is complicated. On one hand, his FID only expired. That means its not a criminal offense. On the other hand, he had a gun which requires higher licensing. That can carry the prison time.

He better have a lawyer who knows his gun laws, guns, and does very thorough research on case law.

A Declaration of the Rights of the Inhabitants of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Article XVII. The people have a right to keep and to bear arms for the common defence. And as, in time of peace, armies are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be maintained without the consent of the legislature; and the military power shall always be held in an exact subordination to the civil authority, and be governed by it.

The above is from Massachusetts' original state constitution and is still in effect as originally written. It was one of the predecessors of the Second Amendment.

A lawyer who understands Second Amendment history and intent in addition to the mentioned areas of expertise would be even more beneficial to his client's defense.

DEY, it wouldn't matter about the lawyer's expertise in "Second Amendment history and intent ", because it has become standard that a judge will not allow a jury to hear it.

the AG is a well-known anti.

About 1980 the Massachusetts Supreme Court (the folks who brought you Gay Marriage) decided that inclusion of "common defense" in the state constitution meant that the RKBA is NOT an individual right in the Bay State.

Thus was born "Gun Owners Hell."

Even some of those in the pro-rights community have stated that addition of "for the common defense" to the Second Amendment's language would have somehow changed it from protecting an individual right to doing something else. I totally disagree. Where is the period historical evidence to back up such an idea?

"That the people have a right" language was universally used in Founding Era Bill of Rights proposals (in five ratifying conventions and the proposals in Congress) in relation to individual rights. These include not only the right to keep and bear arms but also referneces to freedom of assembly, to freedom of speech, to freedom of writing and publishing their sentiments, and to the free exercise of religion. Exactly how does the proposed addition of a reason for one of these rights (the right to arms for the common defense) negate this clear individual rights intent? Even if something restrictive of the right - "solely for the common defense" - had actually been added to the Second Amendment, it would have limited the protection to certain arms and uses, but it would still be a private right to have and use those arms for those purposes. After all, the Bill of Rights was intended to protect rights of the people against misconstruction and abuse of powers by the government.

The acceptance (especially among those in the legal community) that "for the common defense" has a secret meaning that the government has complete control is directly contradicted by Revolutionary and Foundation Era history. It is unfortunate that so few understand that history in detail, and that so many are willing to concede anything to advocates of gun control who don't have a clue about the subject.

I question how and why the police managed to legally enter Mr. Manso’s home without a search warrant or without Mr. Manso’s or his designee’s effective consent. The news articles indicate Mr. Manso was not at home when the alarm sounded.

Unless the alleged contraband was in plain and open sight and the police could view it without criminal trespass they had no business entering the house to seize the contraband. All the police would have had permission, absent verbal consent from Mr. Manso or his agent, to do while on Mr. Manso’s property was to determine whether the burglar alarm was in fact a valid alarm.

If the house had obviously been burgled, and the police had reason to believe the perpetrator was still within the premises they would have been remiss in not searching for the burglar. Their search parameters would have been limited however to only looking in places where a person could be hiding. Opening a shoe box to look for an elephant would be considered an unreasonable search whether a warrant existed or not.

The validness of the search would seem to hinge upon whether the police had a reasonable (there’s that word again) cause to enter Mr. Manso’s house and to look in the places where they found the offending contraband. Whether the AR-15 is actually an “assault rifle” is going to be, unfortunately, determined by the law of the State of Massachusetts no matter what one thinks of the damnyankee state’s laws.

A Little common sense here would have gone a long way, in the defendant locking the firearms up in a safe, where this issue could not have presented itself.

I shutter at the thought of being left to the compassion of the commonwealth on a firearms charge!

What hasn't been mentioned yet is that the author is *VERY* critical of the police.

Dollars to donuts this is a way to get back at him: One of them 'trips' the alarm, giving them an excuse to look around.

The other thing that seems fishy is that no gun owner that I know keeps his guns in plain sight when they are away for any length of time. They get hidden.

Also, if you are checking out the activation of a burglar alarm, why would you bother checking afterwards to see if a person who has guns has the proper paperwork for them? You would go to the house, look around, make sure they were no signs of forced entry, and continue your patrol.

Unless, of course, you were looking to nail the guy for something.

It gets even more interesting. It seems that he's been writing a book focusing on a homicide case handled by this police department several years ago. The basic point of view is that the department totally bungled the case. This has confused more than one commentator who think he's misspoken when he describes the current charges against him as a 1st, rather than 2nd amendment issue.