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…