Caetano v. Massachusetts
The name of the case I chose is Caetano v. Massachusetts, docket number 14-10078. The parties involved were the petitioner Jaime Caetano and the respondent was the State of Massachusetts. Jaime Caetano was in a very abusive relationship. Caetano obtained numerous restraining orders on her ex-boyfriend, but the restraining orders could not stop her abusive ex-boyfriend. When she was all out of options, a friend of Caetano’s gave her a stun gun. One night her ex-boyfriend was waiting for her when she got off work and was threatening to hurt Caetano. Caetano confronted her ex- boyfriend and told him she had a stun gun and would use it if necessary. After, that Caetano ex-boyfriend left her alone. Shortly, after the altercations …show more content…
Caetano pleaded that this law violated her Second Amendment Rights. The court of Massachusetts had three reasons why owning a stun gun was illegal in Massachusetts. First, the court said; “stun guns are not protected because they were not in common use at the time of the Second Amendment’s enactment.” The second reason was that Massachusetts Court believed that stun guns are “dangerous per se at common law and unusual.” Lastly, the court used “a contemporary lens” and found “nothing in the record to suggest that stun guns are readily adaptable to use in the military.” Caetano was found guilty. Finally, the decision of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts upheld the Massachusetts law prohibiting the possession of stun guns, after examining “whether a stun gun is the type of weapon contemplated by Congress in 1789 as being protected by the Second Amendment.” The law recognized that just because stun guns were not around when the Second Amendment was enacted does not mean a person does not have the right to bear arms and protect themselves, especially after following the law and filing restraining orders did nothing to protect Caetano. Caetano was within her Second Amendment, basic human rights to protect