AUGUSTA, Maine — Democrats in the Maine Legislature have introduced bills that would institute 72-hour waiting periods on gun purchases, ban bump stocks and add new violence prevention initiatives in the state’s deadliest mass shooting on record.
The new proposals attempt to go past what Gov. Janet Mills proposed last month in response to the October mass shooting in Lewiston. She wants to expand background checks and tweak the “yellow flag” law to make it easier for police to take dangerous people into protective custody.
Legislative Democrats rolled out their new bills ahead of a news conference on Wednesday, and the package includes items that have been rejected by lawmakers as recently as last year. It shows how a state long considered one of the safest in the nation is grappling with its lax gun laws alongside a strong gun ownership and hunting culture.
One bill from Sen. Peggy Rotundo, D-Lewiston, makes another attempt at requiring 72-hour waiting periods for firearm purchases, after a similar effort from Rep. Margaret Craven, D-Lewiston, failed to pass in both chambers last year.
Rotundo’s bill is sponsored by dozens of Democrats, including Senate President Troy Jackson, D-Allagash, who has been backed by the National Rifle Association as recently as his last election in 2022, though several members who helped defeat last year’s version are not signed on as cosponsors.
Research has shown waiting periods may reduce suicide attempts and violent crime, though evidence is inconclusive on mass shooting reductions. Similar laws are facing lawsuits in states such as Vermont and Colorado.
Democrats led by Sen. Anne Carney of Cape Elizabeth are also tacking a bump stock ban onto an existing bill addressing firearm forfeiture laws. It would bar the sale and transfer of those devices and any others that allow semi-automatic guns to fire like machine guns. The Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday in a case on a federal bump stock ban instituted by former President Donald Trump.
A lengthier proposal from Jackson and House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross, D-Portland, has cosponsorship from rural Democrats who opposed past gun-control efforts, such as Reps. Tavis Hasenfus of Readfield, Scott Landry of Farmington, Jessica Fay of Raymond, Allison Hepler of Woolwich and Ron Russell of Verona Island.
That bill includes six parts:
— $9 million to establish six crisis receiving centers in Androscoggin, Aroostook, Oxford, Penobscot, Washington and York counties;
— requiring the state to implement procedures to notify the deaf and hard-of-hearing community of active shooter situations, along with procedures to notify all federally licensed firearm dealers in Maine about all statewide law enforcement alerts relating to people determined to be dangerous or in mental health crises;
— a new Office of Violence Prevention;
— $6 million to reduce waitlists for and expand access to medication management services;
— about $2.5 million to expand mental health crisis intervention mobile responses to 24/7 services; and
— a “gun shop project” that would mandate dealers distribute suicide prevention educational materials.
The Oct. 25 mass shooting at a Lewiston bowling alley and bar left 18 people dead and 13 injured. Since the rampage and 48-hour manhunt ended with police finding gunman Robert Card II, a 40-year-old Army reservist from Bowdoin, dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the State House has featured months of closed-door discussions and rallies from gun-control advocates calling for changes from the Democratic-led Legislature.
Mills, who has worked with the gun-rights Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine over the years to oppose more sweeping gun-control proposals, unveiled a plan in January during her State of the State speech to expand background check requirements to advertised gun sales, create a statewide network of crisis receiving centers for those in mental health emergencies and amend the “yellow flag” law’s protective custody provisions, among other changes.
Republican lawmakers and the National Rifle Association have criticized the Mills proposal and Democratic legislators whom the NRA accused in a Tuesday alert of “looking to strip you of your Second Amendment rights.”
Gun-control advocates, including the Maine Gun Safety Coalition and Moms Demand Action, have also called for an assault-style weapons ban and an upgraded “red flag” law that does not require a medical provider to evaluate a person before a judge considers a request from family or police to temporarily take away their firearms.