Maine gun rights groups have filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a new waiting period law for most gun purchases.
One of the plaintiffs' attorneys was part of the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark Bruen decision that established a new test for evaluating the constitutionality of firearm regulations.
The three-day waiting period law was enacted by the Maine Legislature this year as a response to the Lewiston mass shootings in 2023. Supporters argued that the law would provide a cooling-off period that would help reduce suicides, which account for nearly 90% of firearm deaths in Maine.
The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Bangor asserts that the law violates residents' exercising of their Second Amendment rights by imposing a restriction unrelated to determining whether individual gun buyers should be denied access to firearms, such as background checks.
The plaintiffs include gun dealers and Andrea Beckwith, who runs a self-defense training program that teaches women how to use firearms. The lawsuit says one of the women injured in the Lewiston shooting is one of Beckwith's clients. It also asserts that the law delays gun sales to those who most need protection, including domestic violence victims.
Paul Clement is among the attorneys assisting with the lawsuit. He spearheaded the 2022 Bruen case against New York that gun rights groups have since used to challenge firearm regulations. In the ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court effectively created a new test for the constitutionality of gun regulations by requiring that such laws demonstrate that they are consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.
Gun control groups have argued that regulating firearms for public safety is inherent in the nation's founding principles. That argument was persuasive this summer in Vermont, where a federal judge blocked gun rights groups' challenges to a pair of gun laws, including a waiting period standard enacted last year.
In his ruling, Judge William K. Sessions III wrote that "the plain text of the Second Amendment does not protect a right to immediately acquire a firearm."
Plaintiffs in the Maine lawsuit argue that the waiting period law "has no historical pedigree whatsoever" and would have been "unimaginable at the founding."
The lawsuit has been long promised by the Sportsman's Alliance of Maine and Gun Owners of Maine, which held events at gun shows over the summer to help fund it.
Maine joined 12 other states in adopting such a law. Violators face a fine of $500 for a first offense and $1,000 for subsequent violations. The proposal was sponsored by Sen. Peggy Rotundo, D-Lewiston, and Gov. Janet Mills allowed it to become law without her signature.
It was one of two gun regulation proposals that became law in response to the Lewiston mass shooting. The other, backed by Mills, expanded background checks to private gun sales.
