Opinion ID: 199885
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Equal Protection Challenge to Class A Licensing Provisions

Text: 69 Like individuals, certain clubs and facilities may possess, store, and use large capacity weapons if they successfully apply for a Class A license. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 140, § 131(a). 10 A club or facility with a Class A license may permit its members to use its large capacity weapons, even if those members do not individually have Class A licenses, if they have a Class B license or an FID card. Id. A Class A licensed club or facility may also permit non-members to use its large capacity weapons (as long as the non-member uses the large capacity weapon under the supervision of a properly licensed club member or a certified firearms instructor). Id. 70 Clubs and facilities which want to possess and store large capacity weapons must apply to the Colonel of the State Police in order to obtain a Class A license. Id. According to the statute, [t]he colonel of state police may, after an investigation, grant a Class A license to a club or facility with an on-site shooting range or gallery... provided, however, that not less than one shareholder of such club shall be qualified and suitable to be issued such license. Id. The term shareholder here denotes three distinct requirements for clubs or facilities which seek to obtain a Class A license. First, they must be incorporated. Second, they must be corporations with at least one shareholder. Third, at least one shareholder in such corporations must hold individually a Class A license. 71 According to the appellants, these requirements violate equal protection standards by irrationally discriminating against unincorporated gun clubs and facilities, and those incorporated gun clubs and facilities without any shareholders. Noting that equal protection requires the government to afford similar treatment to similarly situated persons, the plaintiffs observe that [a]lmost all gun clubs are membership corporations without shareholders, and that several named plaintiffs belong to gun clubs which meet every requirement of the Act for the license except that they do not have shareholders. They also argue that, within clubs with at least one shareholder, a person other than a shareholder should be eligible to fulfill the requirement that at least one person within the club shall be qualified and suitable to be issued a Class A License.
72 The challenged classification is subject only to ... rational basis review.... [I]n this subset of concerns, the Equal Protection Clause requires `that cities, states and the Federal Government must exercise their powers so as not to discriminate between their inhabitants except upon some reasonable differentiation fairly related to the object of regulation.' Mills v. Maine, 118 F.3d 37, 46-47 (1st Cir.1997) (quoting Ry. Express Agency, Inc. v. New York, 336 U.S. 106, 112, 69 S.Ct. 463, 93 L.Ed. 533 (1949) (Jackson, J., concurring)). A statute passes the rational basis test `if any reasonably conceivable set of facts could establish a rational relationship between [it] and the ... government's legitimate ends.' Montalvo-Huertas v. Rivera-Cruz, 885 F.2d 971, 978 (1st Cir.1989) (quoting Tenoco Oil Co., Inc. v. Dep't of Consumer Affairs, 876 F.2d 1013, 1021 (1st Cir.1989)). We need not inquire into the precise rationale of the legislature in enacting the statute. Indeed, because we never require a legislature to articulate its reasons for enacting a statute, it is entirely irrelevant for constitutional purposes whether the conceived reason for the challenged distinction actually motivated the legislature. FCC v. Beach Communications, Inc., 508 U.S. 307, 315, 113 S.Ct. 2096, 124 L.Ed.2d 211 (1993). 73 Rational basis review does not permit courts to pass judgment on the effectiveness of the legislature's proposed classifications. These restraints on judicial review have added force [when the legislature is] ... defining the class of persons subject to a regulatory requirement. Id. at 316, 113 S.Ct. 2096 (1993). This process `inevitably requires that some persons who have an almost equally strong claim to favored treatment be placed on different sides of the line, and the fact [that] the line might have been drawn differently at some points is a matter for legislative, rather than judicial, consideration.' Id. at 315-316, 113 S.Ct. 2096 (quoting United States Railroad Retirement Bd. v. Fritz, 449 U.S. 166, 179, 101 S.Ct. 453, 66 L.Ed.2d 368 (1980)). Legislators may enact complex compromises when addressing novel social and economic issues, and it is for the legislature, not the courts, to balance the advantages and disadvantages of the new requirement. Williamson v. Lee Optical Inc., 348 U.S. 483, 487, 75 S.Ct. 461, 99 L.Ed. 563 (1955). Cognizant of these strictures on rational basis review, we address each of the plaintiffs' equal protection challenges to this portion of the statute.
74 Incorporated entities are subject to different liability standards and types of regulation than unincorporated entities. As the defendants argue in their brief, the Legislature could ... have concluded that the differences in scope of liability might make it easier for corporations to obtain insurance against the risk of injury on premises. Given that the Secretary of State and the Attorney General regulate corporations, the legislature may also have concluded that an incorporated gun club or shooting facility is more likely to prevent the misuse of large capacity weapons than an unincorporated association. Many federal and state laws legitimately treat corporations differently than non-corporations. See, e.g., Town of Brookline v. Gorsuch, 667 F.2d 215, 221 n. 4 (1st Cir.1981) (focusing on the federal tax code); Semler v. Oregon State Bd. of Dental Exam'rs, 294 U.S. 608, 611, 55 S.Ct. 570, 79 L.Ed. 1086 (1935) (denying corporations the right to practice dentistry). The different treatment here easily meets the rational basis test. 75
76 Reflecting its preference for limiting Class A club or facility licenses to entities that are subject to more formal legal requirements, the legislature may have also concluded that extant state law regulated the activities of stock corporations and their shareholders more comprehensively than it regulated non-stock corporations and their members. Every state['s] statute[s include] detailed provisions on the legal relations of shareholders toward each other and the corporation. James D. Cox, Thomas Lee Hazen, & F. Hodge O'Neal, Corporations § 1.5, at 1.15 (1999 Supp.). We find nothing irrational in the legislative judgment that such detailed provisions increase the likelihood that these stock corporations with Class A licenses will be more responsible in their use of large capacity weapons. 77 D. Requirement that a Shareholder shall be qualified and suitable to be issued a Class A License 78 The legislature may have concluded that shareholders have a greater stake in the affairs of a corporation than non-shareholders. Since the legislature was willing to permit non-members of Class A licensed clubs to use large capacity weapons on the premises of a club under the supervision of a club member who holds a Class A license, irrespective of whether those non-members hold a license to use a large capacity weapon, the legislature may have further concluded that its concern for the responsible use of large capacity weapons at a Class A licensed gun club would be advanced if at least one of the potentially supervising club members was also a shareholder in the corporation. Although plaintiffs express considerable skepticism about the rationality of this shareholder requirement, we cannot say that the legislative requirement is irrational. In the realm of social and economic regulation, a classification passes the rational basis test `if any reasonably conceivable set of facts could establish a rational relationship between [it] and the ... government's legitimate ends.' Montalvo-Huertas, 885 F.2d at 978 (quoting Tenoco Oil Co., Inc. v. Dep't of Consumer Affairs, 876 F.2d 1013, 1021 (1st Cir.1989)). We find such a rational relationship between the shareholder requirement and the Commonwealth's evident purpose to maximize the responsible use of large capacity weapons on the premises of gun clubs with Class A licenses. 79