The state’s gun laws are not just under fire at the ballot box this fall. They are also in the crosshairs of a legal challenge before the state’s highest court, targeting the “suitability” part of the state’s prior licensing statue that gun rights advocates say allowed an unconstitutional level of discretion by licensing officials.

In 2023, Holyoke Police Chief David Pratt denied Randy Westbrook’s application for a license to carry a firearm. Because of two sets of criminal charges more a decade prior — an assault and battery charge against his pregnant girlfriend and charges connected to a vehicle stop that discovered 17 baggies of powder and crack cocaine — Pratt determined that Westbrook was “unsuitable” for the license.

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 state’s 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 law in place in 2023 prohibited issuing a license to carry firearms to an applicant determined to be unsuitable, “based on reliable, articulable and credible information” that the applicant exhibits or engaged in behavior that indicates they “may create a risk to public safety or a risk of danger to self or others” if given a license to carry.

Westbrook challenged the decision, in a lawsuit funded by The Gun Owners Action League. His lawyers argue that the statute is “vague, overbroad” and violates due process protections because it does not offer clarity on what makes a person “unsuitable,” let alone how a person could remedy that issue.

More Context

• Post-Bruen decision, everyone has to be a gun-law historian (October 2024)
• SJC gives a Second Amendment win to Mass. lawmakers looking to license non-residents (March 2025)
• Explore CommonWealth Beacon’s special ballot guide section on the gun law repeal.