State urges police chiefs to strip gun licenses from hundreds previously approved

Jim Wallace, executive director of the Gun Owners’ Action League of Massachusetts. Governor Charlie Baker’s administration is urging local police chiefs to strip gun licenses from hundreds of people who were previously cleared by a state board to own a firearm, after regulators warned the decisions ran afoul of federal law. The state began notifying police chiefs late last month after federal law enforcement officials said that the state’s Firearms License Review Board, which considers whether people with misdemeanor criminal convictions should have a license, was clearing applicants who should have been disqualified under federal rules. As a result, the board is now asking local police chiefs — who have the authority to decide who can legally own a gun — to pull the licenses from roughly 340 people who have received approval since the board was created in 2004. That group, according to the board’s former general counsel, includes active police officers who without an active license could be in danger of losing their jobs. And the number of those who could have their licenses stripped is likely to grow. The new legal interpretation could also affect an undetermined number of others who, under a separate state statute, were allowed to get a gun license five years after they were convicted or completed probation for certain types of misdemeanors. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives told the state that this practice also runs counter to federal law, and that those gun owners also shouldn’t be licensed. […]

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