Community Corner
How Many Licensed Gun Owners Are in Peabody?
With substantive gun control proposals now at both the federal and state levels, you may be wondering what the situation on the ground is in the Tanner City.
In light of the reinvigorated debate on gun control and substantive proposals at both the federal and state levels from President Barack Obama and Gov. Deval Patrick this week, you may be curious how many licensed gun owners there actually are in Peabody.
According to some basic state data, between 2008 and 2012, about 3 percent of Peabody residents are licensed to carry large capacity weapons, i.e. semiautomatic guns. That's 1,688 licenses.
A notable difference between Peabody and many other cities and towns in Massachusetts is that no one held a machine gun permit in the Tanner City.
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It is lawful in Massachusetts to obtain a license (Class 3) for a fully automatic weapon, but a person has to either be a state certified firearms instructor or a bona fide gun collector to qualify. And in the former case, the license has to be solely for the purpose of instructing police officers.
It's also worth noting that Peabody appears to have a greater amount of licenses for non-semiautomatic weapons, i.e. revolvers, single-action rifles or shotguns, etc.
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The following statistics are from 2008-2012:
Peabody Firearms Identification Card 194 Firearms Identification Card Restricted Chemical Propellant Only 130 Resident Class A Large Capacity License to Carry Firearms 1,688 Resident Class B Non-Large Capacity License to Carry Firearms108
For the sake of comparison, here are the numbers in Salem and Lynn as well a few other similar-sized communities across the state:
Salem Lynn Revere Haverhill Weymouth Framingham FID Card 122 125 149 234 168 252 FID Card Chemical 90 135 94 132 77 149 Class A License 1,111 2,189 1,153 2,645 1,384 1,688 Class B License 47 0 0 10 29 48 Class C License 3 1 1 5 4 18Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.
