AUGUSTA, Maine — Gov. Janet Mills vetoed a bill to ban bump stocks but let another requiring 72-hour waiting periods to become law without her signature Monday, as part of a final set of decisions on gun control measures introduced in the wake of the Lewiston mass shooting.
Mills, a Democrat, made the decisions after the Democratic-controlled Legislature passed the various gun-control bills earlier in April, some by only one vote due to a few Democrats joining with Republicans in opposing them. While lawmakers had defeated similar proposals as recently as last year, the Oct. 25 rampage at a Lewiston bowling alley and bar that left 18 dead and 13 injured in Maine’s deadliest mass shooting on record drastically changed things.
On the 72-hour waiting period bill from Sen. Peggy Rotundo, D-Lewiston, Mills said Monday she was “deeply conflicted” and recognized “there are people of good faith on both sides, with strongly and sincerely held beliefs.”
Mills said supporters had “real merit” in arguing the bill will help reduce suicides in a state where the vast majority of firearm deaths were suicides in 2021, the most recent year with available data. She also touched on how the association for professional guides in Maine opposed the waiting periods bill by arguing it could harm the outdoor economy if, for example, out-of-state visitors want to purchase a gun to hunt with during a trip. Opponents also argued it would prevent domestic violence victims from quickly obtaining self-protection, though little empirical evidence exists for that claim.
Mills said she let the waiting period bill become law with “some caveats and concerns and with the hope that 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 to engage in lawful and constitutionally protected activities.”
To deal with those concerns, Mills said she will ask Public Safety Commissioner Mike Sauschuck, in consultation with Attorney General Aaron Frey, to monitor legal challenges to waiting periods in other states, such as Vermont. She will also request they review and provide written guidance to police and Mainers on how the legislation affects temporary transfers, such as the borrowing or renting of guns for guided hunts, and the ability of citizens to acquire firearms for personal protection “under exigent circumstances,” among other issues.
The governor vetoed the bump stock ban proposed by Sen. Anne Carney, D-Cape Elizabeth, writing it “relies on broad and ambiguous language that is likely to create uncertainty within both the general public and law enforcement.”
Carney tacked her bump stock ban onto her original legislation directed in part at the controversial Oxford County sheriff that requires police to destroy any forfeited weapons, rather than only those used in murders and homicides. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule this summer on a challenge to a federal bump stock ban issued by then-President Donald Trump’s administration after the nation’s deadliest-ever mass shooting. A lone gunman killed 60 people and injured hundreds during a 2017 country music festival in Las Vegas.
Mills noted the Supreme Court case but said Carney’s bill used “much broader language,” citing how the measure would prohibit the sale or possession of any semi-automatic weapon that has been “modified in any way that materially increases the rate of fire.”
Mills mentioned various alterations common for sporting purposes, such as adjusting a gun’s trigger weight or the buffer spring to increase firing speed, to argue Carney’s bill “may unintentionally ban a significant number of weapons used for hunting or target shooting” here. Restrictions on rapid-fire devices should be developed “in a deliberate, inclusive and clear manner,” Mills added.
Last week, Mills signed her proposal to expand background checks to advertised gun sales, tweak the 2019 yellow flag law she crafted with gun-rights advocates, make it a felony to sell guns to prohibited people and invest in various mental health and violence prevention initiatives that ended up in the supplemental budget.
The following month, Democratic lawmakers unveiled their suite of gun- and mental health-related initiatives that included the measures to ban bump stocks and require three-day waiting periods for gun sales.
Other legislation included a bill introduced last year by Rep. Vicki Doudera, D-Camden, to study the creation of a process in which people who are suicidal could put their names on a do-not-sell list for firearms. Doudera said her bill’s fate is unclear as it awaits funding.
Before adjourning April 18, the Legislature did not take up a late effort from House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross, D-Portland, to create a “red flag” law that advocates view as stronger than the yellow flag statute due to allowing families to petition judges to remove weapons from loved ones deemed dangerous.
The existing yellow flag process requires police to take a person into protective custody before the person receives a mental health evaluation and then goes before a judge who can decide to issue a temporary weapons restriction order.
The state commission Mills set up to investigate the Lewiston mass shooting has held several meetings and released a preliminary report in March that found the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office had enough probable cause to initiate the yellow flag process with Robert Card II a month before the 40-year-old Army reservist from Bowdoin carried out the Lewiston rampage.
