How much leeway should officials have to deny gun licenses? SJC will decide.
As gun law repeal barrels toward the ballot, high court weighs challenge to state ‘suitability’ rules for licensing
Under the version of the state gun law in place at the time, as well as the sweeping 2024 gun law that retooled many of the stateโs firearms laws, local licensing officials like police chiefs can consider a broad range of evidence to determine whether someone is suitable to be granted a license to carry.
THE CODCAST
Where organized labor hits the ballot
Organized labor has been out in force on ballot measures โ recently literally trying to secure bargaining power through the ballot โ and that means manpower, mobilization, and money funneling toward a set of policy measures that the Legislature has waved away. This week on The Codcast, CommonWealth Beacon reporter Jennifer Smith looks at unions and direct democracy with two guests.
Nick Juravich, associate professor of history and labor studies and associate director of the Labor Resource Center at UMass Boston, breaks down where we sit in the history of unions and ballot efforts. Then Chrissy Lynch, head of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, explains how the unions themselves pick their targets.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Commonwealth in depth
The Dean of Massachusetts mayors
Leominster bills itself as โa city on the move,โ but it hasnโt elected a new mayor in more than three decades
BY THE NUMBERS
Massachusetts political parties stand by as their membership rolls evaporate
Voters are not rejecting parties. They just donโt have a chance to join.
From the Archives
On Heritage Road
In the heart of suburbia, anxieties about the new economy


