The Supreme Judicial Court ruled Tuesday that the current legal interpretation of the Second Amendment gives the state the right to bar people under 21 from roaming around with guns, in the case of a man who was charged with unlicensed possession of a firearm – and also assault and battery on a state trooper – in December, 2021, when he was 20.
In an appeal of his 2 1/2-year sentence on the gun charge, Mikai Thomson’s attorney argued the state’s current age limit of 21 for a gun license violates the Second Amendment, since he’s a member of “the people” the Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled has a right to carry.
Even if he had won, however, Thomson, of Dorchester, would remain behind bars, because two months before he went on trial in the case, he was arrested for the shooting death of Xavier Rivas at Old Road and Columbia Road in Dorchester. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter – and also unlicensed possession of a firearm – in September, 2025 and is currently serving a 19 to 20 year sentence at the Souza Baranowski Correctional Center – with a four-year concurrent sentence on the gun charge.
Two months after his plea in the manslaughter case, the state’s highest court agreed to hear his appeal of his conviction for the 2021 arrest, back when he was 20.
Delving into colonial and Revolutionary history, the court, in a 5-2 ruling, said that limiting who can go out in public with a gun has the sort of historical analogies the Supreme Court loves in gun cases: Restrictions on who can own guns in Massachusetts also dates back to the 18th century. In its rulings, the Supreme Court has said states can enact some limits on gun ownership, as long as they comport with what the Founding Fathers were used to.
Because restriction of firearm possession by those deemed too young to handle them safely outside of supervised settings is consistent with the nation’s regulatory tradition, we affirm.
The court summarized what happened when a state trooper pulled over the Jetta Thomson was a passenger in after the driver ran a red light on American Legion Highway near Blue Hill Avenue on the evening of Dec. 16, 2021.
The defendant was seated in the front passenger seat; a lit marijuana “blunt” was in the center console; and a plastic bag containing a pound of marijuana was on the back seat. The officer asked for identification from all three occupants of the car, none of whom was wearing a seat belt. The officer also asked whether anyone in the car had a weapon. The defendant (unlike his companions) did not answer, and the officer asked him to get out of the car. The defendant complied, and then pushed the officer and ran away. Along his flight, he discarded a loaded nine millimeter semiautomatic handgun. He was subsequently charged with and convicted of carrying a firearm without a license, under [the state gun law].
On Nov. 10, 2023 – two months after he shot Rivera to death – a Dorchester Municipal Court jury convicted Thomson for unlawful possession of a firearm and assault and battery of a police officer for the 2021 incident. A Dorchester judge then sentenced him to 2 1/2 years in county jail on the gun charge, with a concurrent six-month sentence for shoving the trooper. Thomson did not appeal that assault-and-battery conviction.
The court said it would actually welcome a comprehensive appeal challenging the constitutionality of the state’s age limitation on licenses to carry, but said that’s not what Thomson’s lawyer filed.
It is significant here that the defendant does not even contend, let alone establish, that only his age stood between him and obtaining a license to carry. Moreover, there is no factual record upon which to make such a determination, and the defendant may have been ineligible for a license on one or more other grounds.
Two justices who dissented said the majority did not do a deep enough dive into pre-Constitutional history – and criticized state Attorney General Andrea Campbell for not even bothering to file an amicus brief about a law her office oversees – and that they would rather have had the case sent back to Dorchester court for a far fuller historical review, one that could withstand possible Supreme Court review:
Given this dearth of materials and analysis and the importance and complexity of the question the court is required to decide, the appropriate response, in my opinion, is to remand the case for further proceedings that would inform the parties of the court’s questions and concerns, further develop the historical record, and require supplemental briefing, including directly inviting the Attorney General and amici to weigh in on the contested constitutional question regarding the appropriate historical analogy.
The majority, however, responded, and just a bit snippily, that it would be easy to go overboard with such a review, and that they were satisfied they had provided enough colonial and Revolutionary history.
It is not an invitation to rummage through history at large concerning customs and mores such as Eighteenth Century farming practices or relations with the Native American population in the Pioneer Valley of western Massachusetts.
