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LYNNFIELD, MA – The U.S. Supreme Court has accepted and docketed a petition by Richard C. Chambers, Jr., Esq. of the Lynnfield, Mass. Chambers Law Office against Democrat Governor Maura Healey’s radical gun law/bans.
Atty. Chambers filed his petition to reverse the Chapter 135 ’emergency” gun laws on behalf of his client, Gino Recchia, III of Mass Armament, LLC. Healey’s Attorney General Andrea Campbell has been given 30 days by the court to file a response.
Chambers’ was successful in having his petition recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court as a lawful appeal to the court following the lower court’s lock-step alignment with the Healey administration.
In his 68-page filing, Attorney Chambers looks to the Supreme Court to settle the matter of whether Massachusetts has violated aspects of the Constitution as regards the Commerce Clause, by denying citizens the right to obtain arms readily available in nearly every other state. He further seeks restoration of the Second Amendment guarantees of the rights of citizens to possess weapons.
“In previous cases, the Court has held that the
Second Amendment protects citizens’ rights to keep
and bear arms for self-defense. This is certainly a
reasonable corollary of the Second Amendment. But
on December 15, 1791, when the Second Amendment
was ratified, indubitably that was not the main
reason for the Amendment. The main purpose of the
Second Amendment was to ensure that the people
were not disarmed of their military-style rifles in order to ensure that no government would be able to disarm them for tyrannical aims,” Chambers wrote.
After summarizing aspects of the Constitution, Chambers continued:
“What was of the utmost concern to the Founders
and the early American citizenry clearly was the
rights they incorporated into the first two
amendments of the Constitution. They wanted to
ensure they always had the right to speak freely, to
assemble, practice their respective religions, to
petition for relief, and that they had the right to
defend themselves from criminals and possible
tyrannical governments. What finally sparked the
violent conflict was when British troops, the
tyrannical government, went on a march to disarm
the Patriots. It goes without saying that those who
carry weapons—nay, superior weapons—will
ultimately prevail over those with inferior weapons.
Disarm your opponent and the war is won before it
begins.”
Chambers cited the Heritage Foundation which wrote in part:
” The founding
generation well understood that people who
lack the means to defend and enforce their
rights are not, in any meaningful sense, free.
For centuries, ruling monarchs had often
disarmed the general population and then
employed professional armies or loyal “select”
militias to impose their tyrannical rule on a
defenseless people.”
Chambers goes on to present a detailed argument for the protection of freedom, including writing that
“When the Second Amendment
was ratified, Americans had the equivalent rifle that
the soldier in the best military in the world carried.
Americans nowadays ought to have this same right
as did those Americans in 1791 when the Second
Amendment was ratified. That was the historical
understanding when the Second Amendment came
into existence.
Counsel submits that none of the decisions of the
appellate courts have considered the fact that the
Second Amendment was codified to protect citizens
from the threat of tyranny. In that respect, the court
below denied relief primarily based on stare decisis
from its former decision in Capen v. Campbell, 134
F.4th 660 (2025), which used the “nuanced approach”
and determined that “historical precedent” showed
regulations of comparable weapons or arms—such as
Bowie knives. Capen, however, never considered
petitioner’s argument, and the court below would not
consider petitioner’s argument because it was bound
by the panel decision in Capen.
Capen was wrongly decided, petitioner contends.
We are not going to belabor the point here, however,
because the Court has already granted certiorari to
hear two cases virtually similar to the issues decided
in Capen and the instant case. However, petitioner
points out to the Court that the arguments go further
than the issues presented in Capen and the two
cases in which certiorari has been granted. Petitioner
claims that the Second Amendment also guarantees
citizens the right to possess firearms equal to or
similar to those carried by the ordinary soldier.
While the AR-15 is not equal to the military’s M-16,
it is fairly seen as the equivalent. While the AR-15 is
not fully automatic as the M-16, the fully automatic
mode is not usually used by the military in favor of
small bursts.
In summation, the Second Amendment guarantees
citizens the right to carry an equal or equivalent
firearm as that carried by the usual military soldier.
The text of the Amendment states such a right.
Moreover, the approach used by the court below and
the Capen panel to uphold the ban at issue were both
wrongly decided, and plaintiff also relies on
arguments in the courts below as to the issues that
the Court is going to decide in the next term in the
two cases for which the Court granted certiorari.
However, petitioner is simply not repeating all the
same arguments here that are already before the
Court for review.
In section II of his filing, Chambers details that :
II. MASSACHUSETTS’S BAN OF THE
WEAPONS INVOLVED IN THIS CASE
VIOLATES THE DORMANT COMMERCE
CLAUSE
If the court below’s decision in this case is allowed
to stand, then it will stand for the proposition that if
Massachusetts wants to enact legislation that bars
the Ford Motor Company from shipping its cars to
Massachusetts and bars Ford access to the
Massachusetts retail market, then that is
constitutional. It will also uphold any law that bans
Ford Motor products from being in Massachusetts,
making it criminal for Massachusetts citizens to
possess them.
Fortunately, that is not the law as interpreted by
this Court over 77 years ago in H.P. Hood & Sons,
Inc. v. Du Mond, 336 U.S. 525, 539 (1949).
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Our system, fostered by the Commerce Clause,
is that every farmer and every craftsman shall
be encouraged to produce by the certainty that
he will have free access to every market in the
Nation, that no home embargoes will withhold
his exports, and no foreign state will by
customs, duties, or regulations exclude them.
Chambers further details how Massachusetts has “usurped congressional powers and banned” weapons in Massachusetts, and argues that the Court must deal with the national uniformity that all citizens have a Second Amendment right…”
Chambers notes; “…if Massachusetts can
pass a law denying certain firearms manufacturers
from selling their wares in Massachusetts, then they
can ban any product from coming into their State,
thereby affecting interstate commerce. But that type
of power is delegated by the Constitution only to
Congress, not Massachusetts.”
The full filing can be found at: Search – Supreme Court of the United States
