Wife’s Right to Carry a Gun Improperly Denied Because of Her Husband’s Behavior, Massachusetts Appeals Court Rules

From Guinane v. Chief of Police of Manchester-by-the-Sea, decided Friday by Justice Peter Sacks, joined by Justices Gregory Massing and Jennifer Allen:

In October 2022, Barbara Guinane applied to the chief of police of Manchester-by-the-Sea (chief) for a license to carry firearms (LTC) …. The chief found Guinane unsuitable and denied the application. The chief did so based on recent incidents in which Guinane’s husband had acted aggressively and violently during disputes with neighbors, resulting in multiple police responses to the Guinanes’ home, criminal charges, two G. L. c. 258E harassment prevention orders against the husband, and the suspension of his LTC….

[At a trial court hearing,] he chief testified that he found Guinane unsuitable based on the conduct of her husband. In May 2022, a neighbor had called 911 to report that, in connection with a property line dispute, the husband “came to [the neighbor’s] property yelling about trash cans and was carrying a baseball bat and then smashed a light pole in a fit of rage.” When police responded, they found the Guinanes sitting on their front porch, where the husband told them, “I know I smashed a light.” He explained that he believed someone had broken into his shed and that he had lost his temper. The husband was criminally charged with vandalizing property, a charge that remained pending at the time of the hearing, and the neighbors obtained a G. L. c. 258E harassment prevention order against him, effective until June 2023. The chief suspended the husband’s LTC, finding him both unsuitable, based on his “volatile behavior,” and to be a prohibited person, based on the G. L. c. 258E order.

Subsequently, the husband and a second neighbor had a “verbal altercation,” leading to the husband’s being charged with threatening to commit a crime (“to wit kill”) and with “assault [with intent] to intimidate based on the victim’s race, religion, color and/or disability.” Those charges, too, remained pending at the time of the hearing, and the second neighbor also obtained a G. L. c. 258E order against the husband.

When Guinane applied for her own LTC, the chief found her unsuitable. The chief acknowledged that, unlike the typical unsuitability determination focusing on “behaviors or incidents involving the applicant him or herself,” here he denied Guinane’s application because of his concern that her husband, who was an unsuitable and prohibited person, lived with her and thus “would have access to the weapons.” The chief acknowledged on cross-examination that Guinane herself had no criminal record and had not been charged in any of the incidents involving the husband. The chief agreed that, if Guinane were not married to her husband, “she would be a suitable person.” The chief nevertheless determined that “it may be a threat to public safety” to issue an LTC to Guinane….

[Guinane] testified that she was a licensed manicurist who operated a nail salon out of their house; customers sometimes paid her in cash. Also, she provided care to and was “directly responsible” for her elderly mother and a niece who lived in the home with her and her husband….

The court held that there was no adequate basis for denying Guinane’s application:

[T]he chief pointed to no behavior by Guinane suggesting that her licensure might create a safety risk. There is no evidence that she engaged in violent or aggressive behavior, or that she assisted or contributed to her husband’s past violent and aggressive behavior, or that she engaged in behavior suggesting that she might be negligent in securing her firearms as required by law.

Nor was there reliable evidence that she intended to or might be forced to make firearms available to her husband or any other prohibited or unsuitable person. Although the District Court judge suggested that the timing of Guinane’s application, shortly after her husband’s LTC was suspended, “lends credence to the [c]hief’s belief that her application was a pretense to allow her husband to maintain access to firearms,” the chief himself never stated that he held such a belief. Nor did counsel for the chief, at the evidentiary hearing, elicit any evidence from Guinane, or ask her, about the possibility that she would give her husband unlawful access to firearms….

The chief’s natural concern that the husband might somehow obtain access was certainly deserving of consideration. But ultimately it lacked the evidentiary basis statutorily required to support a determination of unsuitability….

An application for an LTC shortly after a family member’s LTC was suspended (or application was denied) might be considered some evidence that the applicant had “exhibited or engaged in behavior that suggests that, if issued a license, the applicant or licensee may create” a safety risk by making firearms available to the unlicensed family member. But here it did not amount to the requisite “reliable, articulable and credible information” suggesting any appreciable risk that Guinane might do so and was therefore unsuitable….

Edward Gainor represents the wife.