Gun Rights Still Under Assault in Maine Despite Judicial Setbacks

A few years back, my wife asked if there was anywhere up north I’d consider moving to. I told her New Hampshire and Maine, because those two states had some decent gun laws and seemed to respect the Second Amendment. Maine was still pretty progressive, politically, but they were likely to leave my guns alone.

Then Lewiston happened and all that went to crap.

Now, they’ve been on an anti-gun jihad and are starting to look like just another New England state, and some people there aren’t thrilled, especially as the assaults on the right to keep and bear arms continue despite the anti-gun crowd losing in court.

Earlier this year, Justice Lance Walker of the First District Court placed a hold on Maine’s extreme waiting period law under the precedent set by New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen. This decision defines a clear framework for firearms policy, largely focused on whether the firearm law in question has any historical basis. Based on this landmark precedent, Maine’s waiting period law has been temporarily blocked, because, as Justice Walker wrote, “acquiring a firearm is a necessary step in the exercise of keeping and bearing arms. Any interpretation to the contrary requires the type of interpretative jiujitsu that would make (Franz) Kafka blush.”

One would expect that these ardent anti-gun groups would reconsider their incessant push for gun control until the federal courts clarified a framework for future legislation. However, these groups and their political allies have doubled down, using a scattershot approach to attack nearly every aspect of firearm ownership. These extreme, and often outrageous, proposals have no place in Maine, yet these Portland-based politicians continue to fight to implement Massachusetts-style gun control in the Pine Tree State. These bills, which include redefining semi-automatic firearms as “machine guns,” banning firearms at polling places, requiring costly serialization on nearly all firearm parts, criminalizing the victims of firearm theft, and banning lead ammunition, are all just the latest in the overarching harebrained scheme to deteriorate the Second Amendment rights of Mainers.

The writer, Justin Davis, who serves as the Maine state director for the NRA, goes on to note that there’s a bipartisan coalition trying to oppose these extreme anti-gun measures.

That’s good, because the anti-gun zealots have already done a lot of damage to Mainers’ gun rights.

It’s important to remember what happened here. When Lewiston happened, the doors opened, and anti-gunners started pushing through anything and everything they could. They didn’t care all that much about stopping another Lewiston and closing anything that might have been a loophole; they just pushed the typical agenda of trying to make it harder to buy guns.

The Lewiston killer was a long-time gun owner. Waiting periods wouldn’t have prevented that awful tragedy in any way.

They just used the bodies of the slain as a soapbox to push their agenda. They didn’t care about the shooting itself, and they still don’t. They’re just interested in taking as much as they can, hopefully before gun owners in Maine have had enough and start to vote them out.

At least, I hope that’s what happens.

If the left and right are starting to unite against the extreme anti-gun wing of the Democratic Party in Maine, that’s a huge win and it signals hope for the state’s future. Let’s just hope Davis is right.