AUGUSTA, Maine — Lawmakers failed Friday to override Gov. Janet Mills’ veto of a proposal introduced after Maine’s deadliest mass shooting on record to ban bump stocks and other devices that let weapons fire rapidly like machine guns.
Sen. Anne Carney, D-Cape Elizabeth, put forward the bump stock ban alongside other gun control legislation Democrats proposed in the wake of the Oct. 25 mass shooting at a Lewiston bowling alley and bar that left 18 dead and 13 injured. Carney tacked the ban onto her bill requiring police to destroy all forfeited firearms.
The Senate voted 18-16 on Friday to override the veto, short of the two-thirds support needed to overturn the governor’s decision.
Democrats control each chamber but never looked likely to reach the two-thirds threshold, as several members of the majority party had joined Republicans in opposing the bill during last month’s initial votes: 19-15 in the Senate and 73-72 in the House.
Mills wrote in a veto message that Carney’s bump stock ban used “broad and ambiguous language” that could “unintentionally ban a significant number of weapons used for hunting or target shooting” in Maine. She noted the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule this summer on a federal ban former President Donald Trump’s administration issued after the nation’s deadliest-ever mass shooting in which a lone gunman killed 60 people and wounded hundreds in 2017 at a Las Vegas music festival.
After the Lewiston shooting, Mills proposed and later signed her bill to expand background checks to advertised gun sales, tweak the 2019 “yellow flag” law she crafted with gun-rights advocates to make it easier for police to take people into protective custody and invest in various mental health and violence prevention initiatives.
Additionally, the governor allowed a measure from Sen. Peggy Rotundo, D-Lewiston, to require 72-hour waiting periods for firearm purchases to become law without her signature while also directing her administration to monitor legal challenges to similar laws in states such as Vermont. Gun-rights groups in Maine have vowed to take legal action to try to block the waiting period law, while Kittery Trading Post said it will move its firearms business to New Hampshire.
Similar gun control measures failed to pass the Legislature as recently as last year, but the Lewiston shooting carried out by an Army reservist who legally purchased his guns months before the rampage sharply changed political debates in a rural state with hunting traditions.
Mills vetoed eight bills this session, with lawmakers considering — but not expected to override — the others Friday along with final funding decisions before breaking for the year.
