BELCHERTOWN — The Belchertown police chief’s denial of a resident’s gun license application was not unconstitutional, a Hampshire Superior Court has ruled, finding error in a prior decision issued by an Eastern Hampshire District Court judge.
Belchertown Police Chief Kevin Pacunas denied resident Connor Doran’s application for a license to carry a firearm on Feb. 17, 2024. The chief said that Doran failed to mention on his application an incident in 2019 where his firearm went off in the restroom of a Chicopee restaurant, narrowly missing a woman in the restroom next door. He was charged for discharging the firearm within the building and while intoxicated, both of which were dismissed.
Pacunas, as the town’s licensing authority, deemed Doran “unsuitable” to carry a gun based on the events.
After Pacunas denied the license, Doran and Daniel Hagan, an attorney specializing in firearm, filed a petition in Eastern Hampshire District Court in Belchertown seeking to overturn the denial. They argued that the suitability clause in Massachusetts General Laws is subjective and therefore unconstitutional.
Judge Bruce S. Melikian of the Eastern Hampshire District Court sided with Hagan last summer, calling the reasoning for denial “overly broad, vague and therefore arbitrary and capricious.”
Belchertown’s attorneys appealed that decision to Hampshire Superior Court, where Judge Jane Mulqueen reversed Melikian’s ruling. Mulqueen argues in her Feb. 20 decision that Melikian’s reading of constitutional case law did not apply to the suitability clause, and the judge failed to analyze Pacunas’s denial based on whether Doran’s conduct is considered a public safety risk.
That decision sends the case back to Eastern Hampshire District Court where a judge is expected to rule whether the town has the right to deny Doran’s application for a license to carry a firearm.
Mulqueen’s ruling is not the result Hagan wanted, but he said the facts give him a good basis for a case. If his client loses, Hagan is prepared to appeal the case.
Hagan said Doran, who was living in South Hadley at the time of the incident in Chicopee, was able to get his license to carry a firearm back from the town of South Hadley. He later moved to Belchertown, filed for a renewal of the license and was denied.
“What other constitutional right operates like that?” Hagan said.
According to the Massachusetts case, Chief of Police of Taunton v. Caras, a judge can uphold an “unsuitable” ruling if the behavior of the applicant for a gun license suggests a public safety risk. Mulqueen argues that Melikian did not make his decision based on public safety, but rather on a review of constitutional process.
In his ruling, Melikian uses the 2022 landmark Supreme Court case, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, for his review, which declares New York’s requirement to show “proper cause” for a gun license infringes on a person’s Second Amendment rights.
Massachusetts General Laws were updated after the Bruen decision by removing the “good reason” portion of its firearms licensing laws, but the suitability clause remained. However, subsequent cases in Massachusetts have argued that the subjective nature of “proper cause” can apply to other regulations, such as the suitability clause.
Mulqueen notes that the Supreme Judicial Court already rejected Hagan’s argument in a 2025 case Commonwealth v. Marquis, where a New Hampshire resident involved in a vehicle crash declared his charge of carrying an unlicensed firearm unconstitutional. Attorney General Andrea Campbell in her memorandum of support noted that denying a person who could be a potential safety hazard a gun aligns with the nation’s historical firearms regulations.
The suitability standard is part of a current court case, Pratt v. Wesbrook, before the Massachusetts Supreme Court. In this case, Holyoke Police Chief David Pratt denied Holyoke resident Randy Westbrook a license to carry under the suitability clause for previous domestic and aggregated assault and battery charges. Hagan said this case will likely bring some clarity on the legal issues he raised in his own case.