AUGUSTA, Maine — Most Mainers typically consider the state to be a safe place, but the increased number of mass shootings across the country combined with the shocking killings of four people in the town of Bowdoin last month have raised the temperature of the current debate over guns in the Maine Legislature.
Lawmakers once again are faced with multiple bills that could impose new restrictions on firearms, as well as other proposals to limit access to and use of guns. In the wake of the shootings in Bowdoin and the related shootings targeting three cars on the highway in Yarmouth, Gov. Janet Mills called a meeting with her staff, several Legislative leaders, and David Trahan of the Sportsmen’s Alliance of Maine, the leading spokesman for gun owner rights in the state.
Trahan said prior to that meeting he hoped they would find some sort of common ground on measures to address key concerns raised by the Bowdoin shootings, particularly how to ensure violent criminals aren’t readily able to access firearms when they are released from prison.
The alleged gunman in the Bowdoin and Yarmouth shootings had just been released from prison a few days before he tragically shot and killed his parents and another couple with whom they were staying.
However, those same incidents are spurring gun advocates, like the Maine Gun Safety Coalition, to push harder for measures including a 72-hour waiting period to purchase a gun, and universal background checks for all gun sales, including private sales.
“You can still go to Uncle Henrys and can see a gun for sale and meet the seller in a parking lot and they don’t have to… go through a licensed dealer for a background check," Lynn Ellis of the coalition said. "People are still getting their hands on firearms that shouldn’t."
The 72-hour waiting period for purchase, she said, would reduce cases in which a person is in crisis and rushes out to buy a gun to hurt themselves or others.
Maine voters defeated a statewide referendum on background checks in 2016. Mills has been reluctant to support new bills for background checks.
Maine Speaker of the House Rep. Rachel Talbot Ross is sponsoring a background check bill. David Trahan of the Sportsmen’s Alliance said lawmakers should wait to decide on that proposal and instead focus immediate attention on finding changes on which they can agree.
“What I told the governor and the speaker is there’s plenty of time for the more controversial things like universal background checks or assault weapons bans," Trahan said. "We’re talking about a bill all of us can support. There’s time for both debates, but if you mix in the more controversial, it's likely nothing will pass."
At the same time, gun rights advocates have their own bills, including one to prohibit local and state law enforcement officers from enforcing federal gun regulations.
Gun advocates also have bills to prohibit so-called “bump stock” devices and make it a crime to knowingly sell a gun to someone not allowed to have one, such as a convicted felon.
The background check bill appears likely to attract the most attention and debate as the Legislature progresses, regardless of the negotiations by the governor’s office.