Boston Globe reports that 1998 "improvements" to Massachusetts gun laws that require periodic renewal of all gun-POSSESSION licenses are now making criminals out of honest license-holders due to state processing delays that far exceed the 40-day statutory limit.
> The number of people renewing their gun licenses in the first eight >months of this year is already more than double last year's total. > The renewals are mandated under the Massachusetts Gun Control Act of >1998, which dramatically changed the state's gun laws. Until then, >licenses to carry lasted for five years and FID cards were good for a >lifetime. The law made both good for four years, and gun owners at the >time were already voicing concerns that there would be delays in >processing renewals. > A gun owner with an expired license who is caught with a firearm can be >fined between $500 and $5,000. [Plus, his firearms are confiscated.] > Senator Cheryl Jacques, a Needham Democrat who was an architect of the >1998 law... called the backlog a relatively small inconvenience compared >with the law's benefits... ''I think the law is working superbly,'' she >said. http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/296/south/Gun_owners_up_in_arms+.shtml -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://alum.mit.edu/www/tavares | RKBA! Read the news as though it were source code with a bug in it. --FRED <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
