WESTFORD — Amid the public hearing process for a proposed bylaw that could regulate future firearms businesses in town, a number of attendees shared their thoughts on the proposal as the Planning Board seeks to find consensus among residents.
Some residents seek further regulation
Residents remained divided on the proposed limit on firearms businesses in the draft bylaw. Currently, the draft proposal would allow for four special permits to be granted for future firearms businesses in Westford.
Still, some residents proposed a lower limit. In a letter addressed to town leadership in May, resident Diane Wood noted that Acton passed a similar bylaw during its May 1 Annual Town Meeting. Acton’s bylaw limits the town to two special permits for future firearms businesses.
“A lower number would reduce risk and make enforcement easier and less of a strain on our Police Department resources,” Wood wrote in her letter.
Wood believes that if the state Attorney General’s office determines Acton’s bylaw is legal, that bylaw could set a precedent in Massachusetts. That decision and rationale should be considered in any final Bylaw language for Town Meeting.
She also cited 2021 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Wonder database 2021, which tracks public health data nationwide, found Massachusetts as having the lowest firearms mortality rate (3.4 per 100,000), lowest gun murder rate (1.5 per 100,000), and lowest gun suicide rate (1.7 per 100,000).
“[The rates] represent many years of hard work and varying pieces of legislation to make our communities, and the state, safer,” Wood said. “It behooves the community to advocate for all measures to continue that trend.”
Board of Health Chair Stephanie Granger cited data from the American Public Health Association, which finds gun violence to be a public health problem and a leading cause of premature death in the United States.
Granger asked the Planning Board to work with the Board of Health, believing that “preventing death, disability, injury and gun violence requires a public health approach.”
She added, “I am very concerned about the number four [for the limit]. There are statistics that do not support that.”
Opposing a ‘hard limit’
However, other residents feel the Planning Board’s limit is restrictive, and the amount of firearm businesses should be decided by the market instead.
“I don’t see a problem with it [no limit]. I used to work in Littleton. I didn’t see my quality of life or personal safety change when they ramped up with the gun stores and I won’t see it change when they leave,” resident and Westford Sportsmen’s Club President Al Prescott told the board.
Chelmsford Republican Town Committee Chair Doreen Deshler attended the meeting to “defend the Second Amendment.”
“I don’t think you should restrict gun shops [and] many you have within the town. You don’t restrict how many restaurants or gas stations there are. It’s not fair to restrict one business over another business, that’s taking away their constitutional right,” she said.
However, Deshler added, “I can see your point of wanting to put restrictions on gun shops near schools. I understand that and I agree with that as a concerned parent and a law-abiding citizen.”
Planning Board seeks consensus, trust from residents
Planning Board member Robert Shaffer hoped to bring the two groups to a “strong consensus” during the meeting to ensure a higher chance of the bylaw passing during Town Meeting in October.
“We as a town would be much better off with a compromise on this matter before Town Meeting…My fear is that without some type of consensus nothing will pass, and we will be without the benefit of any regulation,” Planning Board Chair Michael Bonenfant said.
Planning Board member Joan Croteau said she wants the public to “trust” the board.
“I hope that folks see the controls that have been put in place, edited, and corrected with input from the Attorney [in this bylaw]. I hope you see [how] we have tried to deal with the characteristic of the town,” Croteau said.
Members of the board also clarified that the bylaw proposal is not intended to deal with gun violence, but rather to “deal with the characteristic of the town.”
“We have a national crisis, but the number of gun stores…. somebody can go to Nashua and buy a gun so I think what we have to all think about and I think what’s getting lost is ‘what is the intent of this bylaw,'” Croteau said.
She added, “what do we want to see this town become? We’re not going to solve the problem of gun violence here [at the Planning Board] and we’re not going to solve it with this bylaw.”
Legal analysis
A number of residents raised concern over the specific number of allowable special permits that could be granted in Westford. According to a letter to the board from Town Counsel at KP Law, the Planning Board would retain discretionary authority to deny a permit should it choose.
“Even if the record reveals that a desired special permit could lawfully be granted by the board because the applicant’s evidence satisfied the statutory and regulatory criteria, the board retains discretionary authority to deny the permit,” wrote attorney Justin Perrotta.
However, Perrotta noted that the board’s discretion “is not unlimited.” The board must apply the same standards among new and existing applicants.
“Simply preferring one applicant to another is a legally untenable ground, because the special permit granting authority injects criteria not found in the enabling act,” he wrote.
However, according to Perrotta, local zoning and the Second Amendment has “yet to be widely considered by reviewing courts.”
In both Teixeira v. County of Alameda and Ezell v. City of Chicago, Federal Courts have “ruled that the Second Amendment right to bear arms includes both the right to acquire firearms and ammunition, and the right to establish and maintain proficiency in their use.”
Even still, Perrotta says that a zoning bylaw regulating firearms businesses “could be constitutionally challenged” in the future.
