A federal judge sided with gun owners' rights advocates on Thursday and suspended a new Maine law that imposed a three-day waiting period on firearm purchases.
In a strongly worded ruling, U.S. District Judge Lance Walker called the waiting period "indiscriminate" because it applies to all purchasers, regardless of whether they pose a threat to themselves or others. Several gun dealers and the operator of a gun safety program had challenged the law last fall on constitutional grounds.
Referring repeatedly to the Second Amendment, Walker also wrote that "acquiring a firearm is a necessary step in the exercise of keeping and bearing a firearm." Walker's ruling temporarily blocks the new law.
"Citizens wishing to purchase a firearm are dispossessed of one for 72 hours exclusively by operation of the act’s requirement that everyone be subjected to a 'cooling off' period, even those who have passed an instant background check at the (firearms) dealer’s counter," Walker wrote. "That is indiscriminate dispossession, plain and simple.”
The three-day waiting period bill passed the Democratic-controlled Senate by a single vote last year and Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, allowed the bill to become law without her signature. It was part of a package of gun policy changes passed by lawmakers following the October 2023 mass shootings that left 18 dead in Lewiston. Although that package of bills didn't go as far as some gun control advocates had wanted, it represented the most significant policy change in gun-friendly Maine in decades.
David Trahan, executive director of the Sportsman's Alliance of Maine, cheered the ruling. The alliance, which is an influential voice on gun issues in Augusta, supported the plaintiffs on the lawsuit.
"Of course we are all very excited, the people who have been working on this," Trahan said. "All the court did was reinforce what we have been saying all along: to require an arbitrary waiting period for a person to exercise a freedom is unconstitutional."
Nacole Palmer, executive director of the Maine Gun Safety Coalition, which supported the waiting period, said they had fully anticipated a legal challenge to the law from gun owners' rights groups.
"What was surprising was that this judge granted them a political victory that was not in keeping with the decisions of any of the other judges across the nation who have found that waiting periods are, indeed, constitutional," Palmer said. "They don't prevent anyone from owning guns. What they do is prevent suicide and save lives."
In 2022, 156 of the 179 gun deaths in Maine — or 87% — were suicides compared to 22 homicides, according to data from the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The figures for 2023 have not yet been released but will likely show a different picture because of the Lewiston mass shooting and other shootings involving multiple victims.
Nine other states plus Washington, D.C., have some form of waiting periods on gun purchases. They range from three days to 10 business days in Washington state and 14 days in Hawaii.
"With this decision, Maine becomes an outlier because literally all of the other states that have waiting periods also had gun lobby-backed lawsuits to try to overturn them," Palmer said. "And in each case, waiting periods were found to be constitutional."
The office of Attorney General Aaron Frey had defended the law in court. In a statement, Frey said his office presented "presented undisputed evidence that by deterring impulsive purchases, firearm waiting periods save lives" and cited estimates that the law would have prevented 12 suicides in just one year.
"Given the obvious public safety benefits, we intend to continue defending this common sense law and will be considering next steps in the days to come," Frey said.
The ruling also drew attention from national groups, such as NSSF, which is the firearms industry trade association.
"This decision by the court is an affirmation that unconstitutional delays on the free exercise of rights are not in compliance with Second Amendment rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution,” Lawrence Keane, NSSF's senior vice president and general counsel, said in a statement. “Rights delayed are rights denied. The decision to enjoin this law while it is challenged in court ensures that law-abiding Mainers are not encumbered and deprived of their rights to keep and bear arms after they have proven they are not prohibited from legally possessing a firearm.”
