Quabbin Permission to Carry Weapons

How do I know where to buy a home that has a police chief willing to allow me a Massachusetts permit to carry a gun? That's a tough one. You have to talk to people. Every town has a police chief. Every police chief is personally responsible for issuing carry permits. So every chief is very careful to issue permits only to people he/she feels deserves that license. Unfortunately, you can't learn this information in advance of buying a home, here's why. Assume I want to buy a home. I do so. Then I call the dispatch to request an appointment with my police chief. This can be difficult as small towns have part-time chiefs who may be on vacation in Florida the week I call. Once I get the appointment, then I fill out all the paperwork. But first I ask around at the local sporting clubs or sporting stores for where there is a gun carrying permit class. Local clubs offer the class for a series of evenings or weekends or you can get it done in Springfield in an all day class. Once you pass this class and the background check the police do on you, then, weeks, later, your permit arrives in the mail and you are good to go.

But in the meantime, you are illegal if you already own weapons when you move into the state. There is no way to obtain this permit in advance unless you buy the home and take the class and do all of the above long before you actually move into Massachusetts.

The local gun stores are 1. Bucks Rub on 2A in Orange 2. R & R Sports in Belchertown 3. Dick's in Hadley 4. Ware Guns on 9 in Ware 5. Wal-Mart in Orange and in Ware 6. Tombstone Trading in West Brookfield 7. There is also one I can't remember the name of in Gardner. The two gun clubs I know are 1. The Orange Gun club on 2A in Orange and 2. The Petersham Gun Club just outside of Petersham, north, I want to say off of 32, but not sure.

The reason I know all of the above is that I have clients for whom shooting is the year-round reason to live. These clubs are very inexpensive to join, have very nice members who are very welcoming, and offer sporting clay shooting and trap shooting, even at night. For these dedicated sportsmen, these clubs are year-round. They just bundle up and off into the snow they go. If they have significant others, they, hopefully, have other things to do if shooting isn't their thing, because this sport is very time-consuming and they will be very lonely if they aren't busy with their own lives.

On the other hand, the weapons they use are very competitive and often snobby. There is much competition to go to the Amos Keig (not sure of spelling), New Hampshire auction regularly to buy new shot guns. I know one member who owns many 100-year old Parkers and Ithicas (again not sure of spelling). He is not a fanatic. He just lives at his club and lives to admire and use and show-off his shooting expertise and knowledge and hobby and collection to others who have the same interests. I think of it as women who have closets of shoes. But then, I've known sportsmen all my life. When my spouse was an Army Reserve commander of an Engineering unit in Wisconsin, he used to have to move the drill meeting date whenever the hunting season arrived. If he didn't, despite it being AWOL (absent without leave) and an Article 15 offense (legal punishment) noone would show up for work! It was experiences like this that helped me understand the sportsmen's mindset.