taser X 26.jpg

A Taser X-26 is a type of electronic weapon used by many Massachusetts police departments. Private ownership of the weapons and other electronic stun guns is banned. A federal suit filed Thursday in Boston seeks to overturn the state law.

(Submitted photo)

Christopher Martel is a sales engineer with an electronics company, and as part of his job, he transports and installs expensive video displays all across the county.

Because he travels thousands of miles each year with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of electronics and tools, he said he worries that he could be targeted for robbery. He wants to be able to defend himself.

Martel has a license to carry a firearm in Massachusetts, but said because gun laws vary from state to state, bringing a handgun on business can sometimes be a hassle. An ideal solution, he said, would be to carry an electronic weapon, like a Taser, but those are illegal for private use in Massachusetts.

This leaves him in a particular position where he is allowed to carry a gun in Massachusetts but not necessarily in other states, and he is allowed to carry an electronic weapon in most other states but not in Massachusetts.

"I would say that's accurate," he said.

Martel, a resident of Middlesex County, is one of three people who filed suit this week in U.S. District Court challenging Massachusetts' ban on private citizens owning any type of electronic weapon. The suit, filed on Thursday, names state Attorney General Maura Healey in her professional capacity as the defendant.

He and the other two plaintiffs, Middlesex County resident Lyn Bates and Suffolk County resident Donna Major, are seeking to have the courts declare the state ban on electronic weapons unconstitutional. It also seeks to have the courts bar Healey, the state's highest law enforcement official, from prosecuting anyone who owns, sells or uses an electronic weapon for self-defense.

The attorney general's office is aware of the complaint and is said to be reviewing it.

Emily Snyder, a spokeswoman for the Healey's office, said the AG's office would have no comment on the suit.

Massachusetts is one of five states that does not allow members of the general public to own electronic weapons, such as Tasers, which deliver an electric charge over wires fired from the weapon, or any sort of "stun gun" that deliver a charge through direct contact.

In New England, Massachusetts and Rhode Island are the only states that ban them.

The suit charges the Massachusetts ban is in conflict with the Second and 14th amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

The Second Amendment gives people the right to bear arms. The lawsuit states, "Tasers, stun guns and other electronic weapons are 'arms.'" The 14th Amendment ensures people equal access under the law.

Terry Pell, of the Center for Individual Rights in Washington, which is teaming with Martel, Major and Bates in the action, said the Massachusetts law prevents people from having the means to defend themselves, and that makes the law indefensible.

"We want to strike the statute," Pell said. "If the state allows lethal weapons for self-defense, it ought to make available non-lethal weapons for self-defense."

The Center for Individual Rights is, according to its website, a nonprofit, public interest law firm that is "dedicated to the defense of individual liberties against the increasingly aggressive and unchecked authority of federal and state governments."

Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 140 Section 131J bars anyone from owning any electronic weapon "from which an electrical current, impulse, wave or beam may be directed, which current, impulse, wave or beam is designed to incapacitate temporarily, injure or kill."

The only exceptions are law enforcement and correctional officers who have completed a training program and suppliers of such devices. A member of the general public found with an electronic weapon is subject to a fine of up to $1,000, up to 21/2 years in jail, or both.

Police departments in several cities, including Springfield, and the Massachusetts State Police have deployed Tasers as a form of non-lethal use of force. They are called non-lethal or less-than-lethal weapons, but there have been reports that Tasers have been linked to some deaths.

The Massachusetts ban took a hit as recently as last March when it came under scrutiny of the U.S. Supreme Court. The court vacated the 2013 conviction of a Massachusetts woman, Jaime Caetano, who was prosecuted after using an electronic weapon to scare off an abusive former boyfriend who confronted her outside of her job.

In a decision written by Judge Samuel Alito, the court ruled "the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding."

The ruling also noted that Caetano has a fundamental right to protect herself, and by arming herself she was able to "protect against a physical threat that restraining orders had proved useless to prevent. And, commendably, she did so by using a weapon that posed little, if any, danger of permanently harming either herself or the father of her children."

Rather than declare the law unconstitutional, however, the Supreme Court sent the case back to the Massachusetts courts for retrial. The state responded in July by dropping the charges against her.

Pell said the suit is a way of forcing the state to do something. Ideally, the attorney general's office would support their position, or the Legislature would decide to change the law.

If that doesn't happen, "we'll litigate it to the Supreme Court," he said.

That could take two to three years.

Martel said he wants to see electronic weapons treated the same way as chemical weapons like pepper spray are now. Prior to the law being changed in 2014, people wanting to carry pepper spray needed to carry a firearms identification card.

Bates, a retired mathematician, is vice president of a group called Arming Women Against Rape and Endangerment (AWARE). Like Martel, she has a license to carry a firearm but wants another option for defense rather than deadly force.

Major works nights as an MRI technician at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital. She wants to be able to protect herself, but does not want to carry a firearm because she has a "moral aversion" to taking a life, even in a case of self-defense.

Pell said the three defendants are examples of how the ban is inadequate.

"The state really ought to encourage people to use non-lethal weapons rather than force them into the either/or of carrying lethal protection or no protection," he said.

Pell said most other states do not have the same quandary as Massachusetts about electronic weapons.

He said once legalized, people are not going to run around shocking other people. And if that happens, he said, existing laws for assault and battery are still on the books.

"If someone uses a stun gun on someone for no reason or for reasons not related to self-protection, they are going to be charged with assault and battery. That law would still stand," Pell said.

The law allows people to own hammers, but punishes someone who use a hammer to hit someone, and electronic weapons really should be no different, he said.

"The one idea we reject is that in order to prevent assault, the state can prevent any law-abiding citizen from even possessing a reasonable protection," Pell said.

Martel v Healey complaint uploaded by Patrick Johnson on Scribd