NORTHAMPTON — Four months after his firearms license was suspended and he was forced to relinquish his guns, a Williamsburg man had the license reinstated on appeal in Northampton District Court.
Williamsburg Police Chief Denise Wickland had suspended Keith Harmon Snow’s Class A large-capacity license to carry firearms in January, an action Judge W. Michael Goggins reversed May 5. Snow has held a Firearms Identification Card since 1976 and a license to carry firearms since 2002.
The police chief’s suspension of Snow’s license is related to a long-standing dispute Snow has had with the operation of a shooting range at 74 Village Hill Road owned by Robert C. Hodgkins III. The range is adjacent to Snow’s property in Williamsburg.
At the time, Wickland cited a temporary restraining order taken out against Snow in New Hampshire by Hodgkins, who lives in Chesterfield, New Hampshire. Hodgkins runs a gun sales and manufacturing shop in Spofford, New Hampshire, called Highlander Arms.
Wickland also cited an unspecified “recent pattern of behavior” and suspicion that Snow violated a trespass order taken out against him at the shooting range.
Wickland said Tuesday that she agreed in court that Snow’s license should be reinstated after learning that a New Hampshire judge dismissed the restraining order in March.
“I was provided with documentation from New Hampshire’s Superior Court validating that case was dismissed,” Wickland said. “His license was returned to him (Snow) later that day.”
Snow has been ordered to stay off Hodgkins’ property and admitted in court to violating that trespass order in August 2015, a case that was continued without a finding for a year. Snow has campaigned to limit the noise and types of weapons used on Hodgkins’ land. He said he seeks “safe and responsible” firearms use on the property.
The town in recent years has imposed several restrictions on the range’s use that are also the subject of continuing legal actions.
In seeking the restraining order in January, Hodgkins alleged that a specific threat by Snow in August 2015 during a heated exchange between the two caused Hodgkins to fear for his and his family’s safety. Snow disputed the allegation in court and a judge, who reviewed a recording of that argument, dismissed the restraining order in March, in part, on jurisdictional grounds.
Snow said the allegations in the complaint were fabricated and that the restraining order was based on false charges. Hodgkins told the Gazette otherwise in an interview last month, stating that he did not think Snow should have firearms.
In his appeal to Goggins, Snow wrote that the reasons Wickland cited for the license suspension were “improper” and that she made “vague and unsubstantiated claims of patterns of behavior and suspicion of trespass violations.”
In a statement to the Gazette on Tuesday, Snow wrote that he understands why Wickland suspended his firearms license.
“Having received a notice of a restraining order from a legitimate court, whether in New Hampshire or Massachusetts, Chief Wickland was compelled to take the action she did and confiscate my Massachusetts license to carry firearms,” Snow wrote. “I understand that Chief Wickland could not have known that this was an illegal protection order obtained by false testimony.”
Snow said he has hunted deer in the area since the age of 14.
Dan Crowley can be reached at dcrowley@gazettenet.com.