Mass. police chiefs decide who can carry a gun. Lawsuits now question their role
CHICOPEE — Police say Connor Doran drank a couple margaritas before he went into the men's room at Frontera Grill in Chicopee, took his pistol out of its waistband holster and placed it against the wall.
What happened next, Doran told police, was an accident. It also triggered events that led to a lawsuit questioning the constitutionality of the state's firearms licensing laws.
Doran told police that the way he held the pistol that day in March 2019 caused it to fire. The 9 mm slug passed through the wall and crashed into the women's restroom, filling it with smoke.
A woman inside washing her hands initially thought the smoke was from an air freshener. Restaurant staff thought they heard a gas explosion. But they called the police when they found a bullet casing in the urinal.
Chicopee police charged Doran with firing a gun within 500 feet of a building and carrying a gun while intoxicated, both misdemeanors.
Doran's attorney, Daniel Hagan, said his client initially lost his gun license over the incident. But when Doran sat down and spoke with the police chief in South Hadley, where he lived at the time, he regained his access to guns. Years later, after Doran moved to Belchertown, the police chief there took a different view — and pointed to the Chicopee incident to deny Doran's firearm license renewal.
"How can constitutional rights be done like that?" Hagan asked in an interview. "How is that possibly proper?"
Decisions by police chiefs
For years, police chiefs in Massachusetts have played a role in the state's gun licensing process by determining if an applicant seeking a license to carry a gun is a suitable candidate.
Supporters of this suitability requirement say it's a valuable tool in rare instances to keep guns out of the hands of people who local law enforcement believes may be a danger.
In most cases, the law is clear on who is prevented from owning firearms: Police departments that spoke to The Republican for this story said convictions for felonies, drug crimes and violent crimes doom an application. Many residents with such records don't bother applying, they said.
In "suitability" cases, the line isn't so clear.
Recently, a slew of lawsuits have cropped up challenging the police role in determining suitability, arguing that because of a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision, police officials have too much say on who can and cannot exercise a constitutional right.
Doran's case is one of 15 across the state working their way through the Superior Courts.
The judge hearing Doran's case has not issued a decision. The state's appellate courts have not weighed in to create a legal precedent. Gun rights advocates hope one of these cases will end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Pioneer Valley Arms in East Longmeadow offers a variety of firearms and safety classes for its customers. July 30, 2025. (Douglas Hook / The Republican)Douglas Hook
How we got here
In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, saying New York's law requiring people who wanted to carry a gun to show they had a "proper cause" was unconstitutional. The court also said the nation's firearms laws needed to be consistent with firearm regulations of the past, setting up a new way for judges to analyze gun laws moving forward.
The Massachusetts Legislature revised the state's laws in 2022 as a result.
Jim Wallace, executive director of the Gun Owners' Action League, said his advocacy organization is monitoring three cases in the state regarding the suitability standard, assisting the attorneys bringing the cases financially and tracking the cases on its website. One pending in the Boston area, however, became moot when the plaintiff moved, he said.
Wallace said the state's revision of its gun laws following the 2022 Bruen decision amounted to a refusal to comply with the Supreme Court's directives. It "basically had a tantrum," he said.
A case before the high court is necessary because states like Massachusetts and New York "keep playing games," he said. Wallace said a similar situation happened before, pointing to a Supreme Court ruling nearly a decade ago in which the justices unanimously said the SJC erred when it ruled the state could ban the possession of stun guns.
David Pucino, legal director at Giffords Law Center, said the 2022 Bruens decision said agencies granting gun licenses needed to rely on objective standards. The ruling also raised questions about the nation's gun laws, some of which were answered by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2024 when it considered whether a man subject to a domestic violence restraining order could have guns. In United States v. Rahimi , it said the man could be disarmed.
"There are also constitutional duties that you owe to the public at large and that the government of Massachusetts owes to its citizens," Pucino said. "Amongst them is keeping the people safe."
Pucino said there are gun rights groups that seek to challenge as many gun laws as they can. Passing new gun laws, as Massachusetts did when it revised its suitability standard, invites litigation.
According to the Massachusetts Attorney General's office, 15 cases across the state have sought to challenge the constitutionality of the suitability standard. The office has intervened in 11 of them.
"Massachusetts has some of the strongest gun safety laws in the country that are enforced consistent with public safety and the Second Amendment," Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell said in a statement. "My office will continue to defend them against any challenge in order to keep our communities and our Commonwealth safe."
Judges in the Superior Court have ruled in the state's favor six times. Two cases has already been appealed to the Massachusetts Appeals Court.
Mike Meunier, a co-owner of Pioneer Valley Arms in East Longmeadow, works on one of his customer's pistols in the workshop of his store. July 30, 2025. (Douglas Hook / The Republican)Douglas Hook
The cases
In February, for instance, Judge Susan Sullivan in Bristol Superior Court said Fall River Police acted appropriately when they revoked Dana Dupras' license to carry when they discovered a Glock pistol that could hold a large number of bullets in a bedroom when they searched his home.
In March, Judge Ira Gant said Scituate police acted "consistent with the Nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation" when they stripped Joseph Lanza, a Navy veteran and military-certified expert in .45-caliber pistols, of his license after he was charged with – but not convicted – of two instances of physical assault involving his teenage daughter.
Like several other Superior Court judges, Gant based his decision on a 2024 Supreme Court ruling that said the nation has maintained laws since its founding that sought to keep firearms away from people who threaten harm.
In Norfolk Superior Court, Shawn Christopher Wesley sought to challenge the Braintree Police Department's decision to deny his firearm application. It did so because when he was a college student in 2012 he used a gun to rob someone in their apartment of their marijuana. The department also flagged an incident in 2007 when as a teenager Wesley was stabbed during a fight and did not cooperate with police.
"I cannot find that there are no legitimate grounds to support the denial," Norfolk Superior Court Judge James Budreau wrote in his March 12 decision.
Another case, one that GOAL has been monitoring, has been playing out in Hampden County involving a Holyoke man whose run-ins with the law happened years ago.
Holyoke Police Chief David Pratt denied Randy Westbrook's firearm license application in August 2023 because of a 2010 incident. Police records say Westbrook shook and punched his former girlfriend, who was nine months pregnant. Then in 2014, State Police discovered baggies of cocaine in a vehicle where Westbrook was a passenger.
In both cases, Westbrook accepted continuations without findings from the court, and after periods of probation the matters were dismissed.
The Holyoke Police Department declined to speak about its process to vet firearm license applicants, citing the pending lawsuit.
In May, the Superior Court judge hearing the case ruled in favor of the Holyoke Police Department. To accept a continuation without a finding, a defendant needs to admit that prosecutors presented facts that could have led to a conviction, Judge Deepika Shukla said.
"A person of ordinary intelligence would be able to ascertain that assault and battery on a pregnant woman and possession of cocaine with intent to distribute are indicative of a risk to public safety should such a person receive a license to carry a firearm," Shukla wrote in her decision.
William Smith, the Princeton-based attorney representing Westbrook, appealed Shukla's decision to the Massachusetts Appeals Court, which acknowledged receipt of the appeal July 22. He said he is planning on eventually asking the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case. While the SJC issued a decision in March affirming the state's gun licensing procedures, Smith said the constitutional arguments he plans to make before the appeals court in Westbrook's case are broader than what the state justices considered.
"The Bruen case invalidated … all subjective decisions made in the firearms licensing process that are devoid of objective criteria," Smith wrote in an email in response to questions from The Republican.
Smith added that when it came to police, "The root problem is that we have a law in Massachusetts that vests them with what is literally unbridled discretion in deciding whether any given person gets to exercise this fundamental Constitutional right."
The charges against Westbrook, who Smith described as "peaceful, hardworking," were more than a decade old.
Historically, Smith said, people accused of crimes did not lose their Second Amendment rights. The "presumption of innocence must no longer be allowed to be taken as lightly as it is in gun licensing and appeals of those decisions," Smith wrote.
Meanwhile, Hagan, who is representing the man whose gun discharged in the Chicopee restroom, said regarding Doran's charges, his client had no other record.
"It was a simple accident," Hagan said. "And for how long should we deny somebody their rights on an accident?"
Dan Hagan is the attorney representing Connor Doran as he tries to regain his gun license after a negligent discharge in Chicopee. July 29, 2025. (Douglas Hook / The Republican)Douglas Hook
'An important tool'
Massachusetts police departments together handle thousands of applications and renewals for gun licenses a year. In 2024, police in West Springfield fielded 608 applications. And while denials are few, a West Springfield man learned his name once appeared on the terrorism watchlist when police denied his firearms license in 2020.
Chicopee processed about 1,200 applications for licenses to carry and firearm identification cards last year, said Travis Odiorne, public information officer for Chicopee Police. After applicants show up to get fingerprinted and photographed, Chicopee police send the materials to the state's Firearms Records Bureau for approval or denial.
Meanwhile, Worcester Police Department has about 22,856 residents who have licenses to carry handguns, said Worcester Police spokesperson Joseph Cersosimo. It has 1,888 residents who hold firearm identification cards, which only give them permission to possess rifles and shotguns. Every year, the department fields requests from roughly 4,200 people seeking either a new license or renewal. Of those, 1-2% are denied by the department, Cersosimo said.
When it comes to the suitability standard, Worcester police will search its records for reports of lost and stolen guns and restraining order affidavits, for instance.
"Above all, we try to maintain a consistent standard so as not to be perceived as arbitrary or capricious in our decision-making," Cersosimo wrote in an email.
If the police department's decision is appealed, Cersosimo said its licensing officers testify in District Court. In most cases, Cersosimo said, the judge sides with the police decision.
In Springfield District Court, people filed 17 lawsuits naming Lawrence Akers, Springfield Police superintendent, as a defendant in 2024 and 2025. All of them were about firearms license appeals.
Before he became executive director of the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association, Michael Bradley said the question of suitability of a firearms applicant only came up only a handful of times during his 16-year stint as chief of the Upton Police Department.
Bradley's organization represents almost 400 police chiefs across the state. It is monitoring the lawsuits challenging the suitability standard.
"It's an important tool for us to keep people safe and keep the public safe," Bradley said. "We caution our chiefs to use that on a case-by-case basis, not to make any assumptions or generalize for certain offenses or behavior."
Bradley said a chief could deny a license if they know the mental health of a suicidal person is getting worse but they are not disqualified according to the law, or if a domestic violence prosecution falls apart because, say, a witness did not testify.
For Ruth Zakarin, CEO of the Massachusetts Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence, the suitability standard is a key part of a multifaceted approach to addressing gun violence. That approach includes educating members of a local community, and a legislative agenda that, for instance, proposes a measure directing the state to reexamine unsolved homicides.
Zakarin said she'd like to know that communities have mechanisms in place to remove firearms from a home where there have been several domestic violence calls, as the presence of firearms there increases by a factor of five the risk of a homicide.
"These lawsuits will play out the way that they play out," Zakarin said. "In the meantime, our work moves forward."
Kendall Knapik, the co-owner of Pioneer Valley Arms in East Longmeadow, stands in the shop's back room with her business partner, Mike Meunier. July 30, 2025. (Douglas Hook / The Republican)Douglas Hook
A patchwork
The first step in obtaining a gun license in Massachusetts is a basic firearms course. The co-owners of Pioneer Valley Arms, Kendall Knapik and Michael Meunier, offer the class in a 34-seat, wood-paneled classroom at their East Longmeadow gun shop.
When aspiring gun owners leave the class, they face slightly different application processes with police departments, depending on where they live, Knapik and Meunier said.
Chicopee asks for two character references. Holyoke residents can sign up for an appointment online. Four municipalities in the region — Springfield, Chicopee, Hampden and Ludlow — require applicants to fire a gun in a range setting.
When the regulations were first adopted, Meunier said, police chiefs had the ability to impose conditions on a gun license and few allowed applicants to fully carry a gun for general self-defense.
Until laws changed after the Bruen decision, Meunier said police would often impose restrictions on the firearms license, limiting its use to target shooting and hunting, for instance.
When some applicants were denied licenses over suitability, Knapik said they were often able to get the decision overturned because a police chief had not interviewed them, which they're supposed to do.
Some people are hesitant to challenge a firearm license denial, Knapik said, even if they think they are in the right.
"As a resident of a town, do you sue the town you live in? How does that look for you?" Knapik asked.
Meunier said some police departments may have stopped doing interviews of gun license applicants as part of a holdover from the pandemic.
"The issue that we see with suitability is that oftentimes it is improperly applied," Meunier said. "To apply a subjective opinion and a subjective regulation to a constitutionally protected right is crazy."
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