Latest news with #LD1230
Yahoo
30-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Citing ongoing lawsuit, committee opts to defer proposals to alter Maine's 72-hour waiting period
Guns are shown at Caso's Gun-A-Rama in Jersey City, New Jersey, which has been open since 1967. (Photo by Aristide Economopoulos/NJ Monitor) Maine lawmakers will wait to take action on proposed legislation regarding the state's 72-hour waiting period for firearm purchases. The Legislature's Judiciary Committee unanimously voted to carry over LD 208, a proposal from House Minority Leader Billy Bob Faulkingham (R-Winter Harbor) to repeal the law passed just last year that requires someone who sells a firearm to wait three days before delivering it to the buyer. However, the committee was divided on whether to carry over an identical bill, LD 1230, with Democrats voting in support and Republicans opposed. The votes taken Friday were not an absolute, but rather a request of the presiding officers who have the final say on what will be carried over. After the waiting period took effect in August, opponents filed a lawsuit in November claiming it violates the Second Amendment rights of people who have passed background checks. Earlier this year, a U.S. District Court judge sided with the gun rights advocates and temporarily paused the waiting period. Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey appealed the decision, but a federal appeals court last week refused to reinstate the waiting period while the lawsuit unfolds. Over the past few weeks, Senate co-chair Anne Carney (D-Cumberland) encouraged the committee to carry over Faulkingham's bill and kill the other proposal to streamline the committee's work and allow time for the legal process to play out before making any changes. However, multiple Republicans on the committee said they did not want their names on the record as voting against the bill. 'I'm not going to have my name on that report and follow me forever,' said Rep. Jennifer Poirier (R-Skowhegan), though she agreed it's important to carry over one of the bills in case changes need to be made. Stuck at a stalemate, Carney suggested Friday that the committee vote to carry over both bills, but Republicans also raised concerns with this approach. Committees are only allowed to carry over a limited number of bills from the first to second session, so some Republicans were concerned carrying over identical proposals would waste one of those slots and lead to Senate president and speaker of the House of Representatives killing one of the bills. 'Why can't we have a conversation on the floor?' asked Rep. Rachel Henderson (R-Rumford), encouraging the committee to advance LD 1230 this session Rep. Adam Lee (D-Auburn), who voted to carry over both proposals, said his understanding was that the committee decided to not work on either bill while the lawsuit is ongoing. Since the committee hasn't fully workshopped the bills, Lee said sending one to the chamber floors wouldn't make sense. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Republican lawmakers want to repeal Maine's 72-hour waiting period on firearms purchases
Apr. 16—AUGUSTA — Gun rights supporters urged Maine lawmakers Wednesday to roll back some of the safety measures put in place last year in the wake of the Lewiston mass shooting. House Minority Leader Billy Bob Faulkingham, R-Winter Harbor, has submitted one of two bills to repeal the 72-hour waiting period on firearm sales. Rep. Jennifer Poirier, R-Skowhegan, has proposed eliminating mandatory background checks for private sales. The waiting period and a law expanding background check requirements to include private, advertised sales were passed by the previous Legislature after a gunman killed 18 people in October 2023. Faulkingham said Wednesday the waiting period law was the result of government overreach. "This requirement may have been well-intentioned, but ultimately it is unnecessary, burdensome and of questionable constitutionality," Faulkingham said. Gun rights advocates also sued the state in November to overturn the waiting period law. The outcome of the lawsuit is pending, but a federal judge ruled in February to pause implementation of the law while the case works its way through the court system. Faulkingham pointed to Chief U.S. District Judge Lance Walker's injunction, which has been continued pending a decision by a federal appeals court, in making his case for LD 208 to members of the Judiciary Committee Wednesday. "This is a strong signal the courts believe this law will ultimately be found unconstitutional and if that is the case, it makes little sense for us to keep it on the books," Faulkingham said. Gun safety advocates, however, have said that 72-hour waiting periods are useful in preventing suicides by giving people a "cooling off" period before they're able to access a gun — an argument that resurfaced during Wednesday's public hearing. "It allows ... time for the suicidal person to have second thoughts and to change their mind before acting," said David Moltz, a physician and psychiatrist who testified on behalf of the Maine Association of Psychiatric Physicians. "They still get to have their gun; they just have to wait a few days to get it. But those few days may mean the difference between life and death." Lawmakers only narrowly passed the 72-hour waiting period last year, with the House of Representatives voting 73-70 and the Senate voting 18-17. Gov. Janet Mills allowed the bill to become law without her signature, saying at the time that she was deeply conflicted over the bill and that similar laws were being challenged in other states, including Vermont. The Vermont lawsuit still has not been resolved. Rep. Quentin Chapman, R-Auburn, has proposed a second bill, LD 1230, identical to Faulkingham's, that would also eliminate the waiting period. Both bills have several Republican co-sponsors. Supporters of gun rights argued Wednesday that the new law, which was in effect for a few months before being paused by the court, hurt business at gun shops and has made it harder for people to be able to defend themselves. Andee Reardon, a Maine representative of the group Women for Gun Rights, told the committee that she lives just minutes away from where the Lewiston shooting took place and that she was overwhelmed hearing from women who felt unsafe in the aftermath as it took police two days to locate the shooter. "For those people, that 72-hour wait period is much too long," Reardon said. "If we have another tragedy in our state people are going to want to arm themselves, because the police are busy." Nacole Palmer, executive director of the Maine Gun Safety Coalition, which pushed for the reforms last year, testified against both 72-hour bills as well as a proposal from Rep. Jennifer Poirier, R-Skowhegan, to eliminate requirements for background checks on private gun sales. "These policies are two of the most basic tools in our toolbox to reduce crime and save lives," Palmer said. IMPROVING STORAGE Lawmakers also heard proposals Wednesday for improving the safe storage of firearms. LD 1120 would strengthen the criminal penalties associated with negligent storage of firearms and would require dealers to post public notices in areas where sales occur warning of the risks associated with having firearms at home. Another pair of bills, LD 1174 and LD 1104, would facilitate firearms hold agreements through which people could temporarily store their firearms with a gun shop. Rep. Vicki Doudera, D-Camden, the sponsor of LD 1104, said such arrangements would be useful in a variety of scenarios, including during the sale of a home, when children are visiting or during a tumultuous time such as a divorce. Doudera suggested the committee could combine her bill with LD 1174, from Rep. Stephen Wood, R-Greene, because she said the language in Greene's bill is stronger. She suggested also expanding Greene's bill, which would only provide the option for firearms owners who are veterans or emergency responders. Greene said gun shops are currently not allowed to offer such a service. He said it would be a valuable tool for helping people who are more likely to experience a mental health crisis, but expressed concerns about opening up hold agreements for broader groups of people, saying it could overwhelm firearms dealers with needs for storage. "If it's just military and first responders, it would be fewer people and they could make the room for them," Greene said. Copy the Story Link
Yahoo
15-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
GOP lawmakers seek rollback of 72-hour waiting period, background checks for certain firearm sales
Tim Russell of Sydney was among the minority of demonstrators on Jan. 3, 2024 who protested in support of gun rights. (Photo by Jim Neuger/ Maine Morning Star) After scraping by with razor-thin support last session and pending questions about its legality, Maine's 72-hour waiting period for gun purchases is before lawmakers again as Republicans seek to repeal it. Last session, the Legislature passed a bill requiring a three-day waiting period after someone purchases a gun before they can bring it home as part of a slew of gun safety legislation in the aftermath of the deadly Lewiston mass shooting. The law is currently suspended amid a legal challenge questioning its constitutionality, but legislators are still seeking to do away with it in Maine statute. After lawmakers voted to enact the bill 73-70 in the House of Representatives and 18-17 in the Senate, Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat who has a history of support for gun rights, allowed it to become law but did not endorse it with her signature. At the time, she said she was conflicted over what she saw as the burden it placed on law-abiding citizens, while also understanding the argument that it could save lives by preventing impulsive suicides and homicides. After the waiting period took effect in August, opponents filed a lawsuit in November claiming it violates the Second Amendment rights of people who have passed background checks. Earlier this year, a U.S. District Court judge sided with the gun rights advocates and temporarily paused the waiting period. Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey appealed the decision, but a federal appeals court last week refused to reinstate the waiting period while the lawsuit unfolds. Meanwhile, the Legislature's Judiciary Committee is set to hold a public hearing Wednesday morning for two proposals to repeal the law entirely. Both bills would repeal the portion of Maine statute that requires someone who sells a firearm to wait 72 hours before delivering it to the buyer. LD 208 is sponsored by House Minority Leader Billy Bob Faulkingham (R-Winter Harbor), while the nearly identical LD 1230 is sponsored by Rep. Quentin Chapman (R-Auburn). The committee will also hear a proposal from Rep. Jennifer Poirier (R-Skowhegan) to roll back another gun reform measure passed last session: background checks on the private sales of firearms. Specifically, LD 1062 would repeal a law that was part of a slate of reforms introduced by Mills in response to the Lewiston shooting that expanded background checks to advertised sales. During last year's House discussion ahead of the floor vote on the bill, proponents said it closed a loophole in Maine's background check law without requiring universal background checks — which Mainers narrowly voted down in a 2016 referendum. But opponents argued it was an infringement of Second Amendment rights that would only further burden law-abiding citizens. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
