The Bruen decision was supposed to end the idea of denying permits to people over idiotic stuff like not having a good enough reason to carry a firearm. However, anti-gun states are more than ready to use all kinds of other stupid things to deny them.
One such example is determining if someone is "suitable" to get a gun permit. That led to a denial for a man in Massachusetts, but why he was unsuitable is the big issue.
Alright, it's part of the issue. A "suitability" requirement is a major issue in and of itself because it's just too easy to decide someone is unsuitable because they're part of the wrong political party, the wrong ethnic group, or literally anything else.
But this example is especially stupid:
Back in September of 2020, the police chief rejected Dwiggins’ application for the large capacity license to carry firearms on grounds that he was “unsuitable” to obtain such a license.
The police chief, Paulhus, cited more than 80 police contacts with either Dwiggins’ son or wife over the previous 14 years. Many were for incidents of domestic violence at their house, and many of these contacts were for mental health crises involving his wife.
One of the police reports involved Dwiggins getting into a dispute with his 15-year-old son, who reportedly had a serious substance abuse history and was a drug dealer.
His son had come home drunk and become combative after Dwiggins told him he couldn’t have a sleepover, according to the police report. Dwiggins said his son had pushed him, while the son said his father had grabbed him first.
His son then picked up a kitchen knife, according to Dwiggins who told police that his son said, “He was going to go to his room and hold the knife to his throat so if his mother wanted to kill him he would make it easier for her.” Dwiggins said he then knocked the knife out of his son’s hands.
Another police report involved a different incident with a knife. Dwiggins’ son, after a physical altercation with his brother, reportedly picked up a knife and threatened to kill his brother.
That's right, Dwiggins has never had a run-in with the law, but his son and wife have over the past 14 years, and that's enough to deny him a license to carry a firearm.
He can own them, but not carry them, which will ironically mean he has to leave them at home where they'll be easier for the wife or son to access them, even if they're locked up as state law requires.
On his person, he's got more direct control of at least one firearm, but nope. He's related to people who have or had issues, thus he can't be trusted.
It's insane.
But it makes some sense if you remember that Massachusetts gun laws aren't really about stopping criminals. They're generally there to stop law-abiding citizens. Proponents seem to believe that there's a kind of spill-over effect, that if you curtail the gun rights of innocent people, criminals are also denied firearms. It's funny, because most of them made fun of "trickle-down economics" back in the day, but think "trickle-down gun control" is just swell.
Especially when it's absolute BS.