AUGUSTA, Maine — A group that has worked with the governor as she considered gun reform policies in the wake of the Lewiston mass shooting plans to sue the state over a gun purchase wait period bill she's allowing to become law.
Sportsmans Alliance of Maine Executive Director David Trahan told NEWS CENTER Maine late Tuesday afternoon his board approved filing an injunction in an attempt to stop LD 2238 from becoming law. The bill, "An Act to Address Gun Violence in Maine by Requiring a Waiting Period for Certain Firearm Purchases," enacts a 72-hour waiting period for people attempting to purchase a firearm in the state.
Trahan said, for those of his 8,000 members who are hunters, it'll be an inconvenience they can work through. For gun show operators, he said it'll put them out of business. And for women in danger of domestic violence, he purported, it could mean they can't defend themselves.
"Those folks, now, are gonna have to wait three days while their potential assailant or stalker can have a firearm—if they already own one—or harm them," Trahan said.
Nacole Palmer, executive director of the Maine Gun Safety Coalition, applauded the law's possibility to reduce suicide. To Trahan's point, she cited data from the Maine Coalition to End Domestic Violence, which the MCEDV presented to the Legislature's judiciary committee in March, which found an abused woman buying a gun doubles the risk of firearm homicide by an abusive partner. Palmer said lives would be saved because of this law.
"It makes our communities considerably safer than they were before," she said. "It's a massive step in the right direction."
Explaining her decision not to decide on this bill, Mills wrote, in part, "I hope it can be implemented to accomplish its intended goal of preventing suicide by firearm without overburdening our outdoor sports economy and the rights of responsible gun owners and dealers."
Mills also vetoed a bill that would ban bump stocks that make semiautomatic guns automatic. It's sponsored by fellow Democrat, Cape Elizabeth Sen. Anne Carney.
"We're kind of back where we started; back in the days of Al Capone, really, where these devices turn firearms into machine guns and they're readily available to any member of the public," Carney said. "That is scary for me. I think it would be concerning for law enforcement and anybody who's really interested in public safety."
A 2018 national bump stock ban is currently being argued in the U.S. Supreme Court, with a decision anticipated early in the summer.
Mills' office did not respond to a request Tuesday for an interview and another for comment on the pending lawsuit.