Jim Wallace, the head of the National Rifle Association's Massachusetts affiliate organization, compared a local ordinance that requires people who want to carry a gun in public to show a good reason for doing so to an unconstitutional poll tax.

On the January 27 broadcast of Fox News' Fox & Friends, Wallace, who is the executive director of Gun Owners Action League, criticized a new ordinance in Lowell, Massachusetts, that requires applicants for an unrestricted gun license -- the license typically needed to carry a concealed gun in public in that state -- to explain in writing why the license should be granted. The ordinance also requires seekers of the unrestricted licenses to take additional gun training and pay additional fees.

Wallace said of the ordinance, “I suppose it's balanced and reasonable to somebody who doesn't want you to exercise your civil right. I mean the people who initiated the original poll tax probably thought that was very reasonable as well” :

Unlike poll taxes, which were used to discriminate against African Americans and others and violate the U.S. Constitution, law enforcement discretion for issuing concealed carry permits has been upheld as consistent with the Second Amendment by federal appeals courts.

Like other conservative media outlets covering the Lowell ordinance, Fox News described the written requirement for the license as an “essay” requirement, creating the false impression that it is unusual.

In fact, a written requirement, sometimes called a “good cause statement,” is a common feature of states that have what are known as “may issue” concealed carry permitting systems that generally give local law enforcement discretion in determining who is allowed to carry a gun in public.

According to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, Massachusetts is one of nine states with “may issue” licensing schemes. Another 17 states give local law enforcement “limited discretion” in awarding permits.

Several U.S. Courts of Appeals have rejected recent legal challenges to different states' discretionary permitting systems, in some cases reversing lower federal district court decisions. In 2013, New Jersey's “justifiable need” requirement for a concealed carry permit was upheld by the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. The Supreme Court let that decision stand, declining to hear an appeal of the case in 2014. (The Supreme Court has also declined to hear similar cases out of New York and Maryland.)

The NRA frequently compares the conditions placed on firearm ownership to unconstitutional racial discrimination, and draws parallels with Jim Crow laws and the segregation-era “separate but equal” doctrine. The vast majority of laws regulating firearms, however, are found by courts to comport with the Second Amendment.