MA court hears challenge to gun law

BOSTON (AP) - The highest court in Massachusetts has heard arguments in a challenge to a state law that requires gun owners to lock weapons in their homes.

The case involves a Billerica man whose son allegedly shot a BB gun at a neighbor. The 18-year-old showed police where his father kept other unlocked guns.

A judge threw out the case against the youth's father, who was charged with improperly storing guns, citing a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a Washington, D.C. case that found that the Second Amendment gives people the right to keep and bear arms for their personal use.

Middlesex County prosecutors argued Thursday that the Massachusetts law requiring guns to be safely locked is very different from the Washington law, which required gun owners to keep their weapons disassembled.