Homeless Woman’s Stun Gun Case Will Go to the State’s Supreme Judicial Court Tuesday
Does the ban on stun guns in Massachusetts infringe on the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms? How does another Second Amendment right, to defend oneself inside one’s own home, apply to those who don’t actually have homes?
These questions will be before the state’s Supreme Judicial Court on Tuesday, when it is set to hear arguments in the case of Jaime Caetano, a homeless woman appealing her 2013 conviction for violating the state’s ban on the private possession of stun guns, WCVB reports.
Caetano, 32, wants her conviction vacated and the stun gun, which she got from a friend in order to protect herself from an abusive ex-boyfriend, returned to her, according to The Boston Globe.
Police discovered the weapon in Caetano’s purse during a 2011 shoplifting investigation. At her trial, Caetano testified that her ex-boyfriend repeatedly visited and threatened her at work despite several restraining orders against him. Though Caetano never actually used the stun gun, simply showing it to her ex – who once beat her so badly that she had to go to the hospital – was enough to scare him into leaving her alone.
Massachusetts is one of five U.S. states that prohibits private citizens from owning stun guns or Tasers. Until this year, Massachusetts was also the only state to require adults to have a firearms identification (FID) card to purchase or carry pepper spray or Mace, according to The Greenfield Recorder.
Benjamin H. Keehn, Caetano’s lawyer, argues that the Second Amendment definition of “arms’’ applies to stun guns, and that there is legal precedent for the right to carry them outside of the home. Homelessness does not exempt one from this right, Keehn wrote in a legal brief.
Prosecutors do not believe the Second Amendment grants such a right and argue that the two cases Keehn refers to do not establish the right to use firearms in self-defense outside the home.
Some legal experts also argue that, in a state where private citizens may legally possess guns, bans on less-lethal weapons like stun guns and Tasers don’t make sense.
To comment, please create a screen name in your profile
To comment, please verify your email address
Conversation
This discussion has ended. Please join elsewhere on Boston.com