“Top police officials and activists from Boston and area communities blasted the state Senate Tuesday for watering down gun control legislation by stripping a provision aimed at keeping rifles and shotguns out of the hands of dangerous people,” bostonglobe.com reports. Yes, well, that’s not exactly how I’d put it. Skipping ahead, let’s see what firearms-related “public safety” provision the police seek. “The unusual public criticism by police chiefs comes after the Senate last week voted to remove a House provision giving chiefs discretion to deny firearms identification cards, required to buy shotguns and rifles, to people they deem unsuitable. They now have that discretion over licenses to carry handguns.” So, what we’ve got here . . .

is a classic failure to communicate. Someone forgot to tell the chiefs about the part of the United States Constitution – to which they’ve sworn an oath to uphold and defend – that says the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Making police chiefs the gatekeepers for Americans’ gun rights, whether we’re talking about handguns, shotguns, rifles or yes machine guns, transforms it from a right to a privilege.

And people wonder why I’m skeptical about police. Just sayin’. Anyway, I’m happy to play hail to the chief here, so that we can see what passes for “logic” amongst the statists making a living from the public purse in The Bay State.

“Are people really going to be any less dead if they’re killed with a rifle or a shotgun than a handgun?” Police Chief Terry Cunningham of Wellesley [above center] said at the morning press conference . . . Police chiefs say they and their officers know their communities and are well positioned to screen out potentially dangerous people from gaining access to shotguns and rifles.

In other words, Chief Cunningham knows the 27k residents of his town well enough to decide whether or not they should be able to exercise their gun rights – for hunting, sport, recreation, self-defense or defense against government tyranny (ironically enough) – depending on criteria that he creates.

I wonder if Boston Police Chief Thomas F. Sullivan has the same level of intimate not-to-say-psychic insight into his town’s 180k residents. Or maybe that’s not the point.

Anyway, a “compromise” is being hammered-out; which the Globe somehow failed to secure. But one thing’s for certain: Massachusetts’ residents’ gun rights will never be secure as long as their politicians and police consider themselves the last word on public safety.

Cunningham, the Wellesley police chief who is also a former president of the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association, said it was very rare to have police chiefs protest at the State House on such short notice. But, he added in a telephone interview, the rally came about because the disputed measure “is really important to us. It’s important to keep people safe.”

Which is why Wellesley residents seeking a license to carry a gun must pay the Chief’s peeps $100, complete a firearms safety course, write a letter “detailing” their needs for a license to carry firearms and two letters of recommendation from non-relatives. As well as fingerprints, of course. How safe is that?