The Commonwealth of Massachusetts requires its citizens to get permission from their local police departments before they can exercise their right to bear arms. Anyone who carries a firearm for self-defense without first securing a government-issued license is branded a felon and subjected to up to five years in state prison, with a mandatory minimum sentence of eighteen months that cannot be reduced or deferred in any way. This draconian punishment is imposed even on otherwise law-abiding citizens, regardless of whether they had any idea that such pre-approval was required for the exercise of their fundamental rights. The question presented is whether the imposition of a mandatory eighteen-month jail sentence on a first offender for what might well be an entirely innocent regulatory infraction converts the Commonwealth's licensing regime from a reasonable regulation of the right to bear arms into an unconstitutional infringement thereon.

Whether the imposition of a mandatory eighteen-month jail sentence on a first offender for what might well be an entirely innocent regulatory infraction converts the Commonwealth's licensing regime from a reasonable regulation of the right to bear arms into an unconstitutional infringement thereon