Maine governor will allow one final gun safety bill, veto another in wake of Lewiston mass shootings
PORTLAND, Maine — Maine’s Democratic Governor Janet Mills said Monday she will allow one of the last few gun safety bills — a waiting period for gun purchases — to become law without her signature in the wake of the Lewiston mass shooting.
The governor announced she would let a 10-day period pass without signing or vetoing the 72-hour waiting period law, causing it to go into effect without action. The law will come into effect this summer.
The governor also said Monday she has vetoed a ban on bump stocks that would have applied to a device that can be added to a semiautomatic rifle so it can fire like a machine gun. A gunman used a bump stock during the 2017 Las Vegas shooting that killed 60 people and injured 869.
The 72-hour waiting period for gun sales was fiercely opposed by Republicans, who said it would infringe on the rights of people who want to exercise their constitutional right to buy a gun. Maine hunting guides said it could also restrict gun sales to out-of-state hunters who come to Maine for short excursions and buy a gun while visiting the state.
Mills said she is allowing the waiting period to become law with “caveats and concerns,” and that there will be steps to guide it, such as directing the state’s attorney general and public safety commission to oversee constitutional challenges during waiting periods that arise. elsewhere in the country.
“This is an emotional issue for many, and there are compelling arguments for and against,” Mills said in a statement.
The bills were part of a number of actions taken by lawmakers following the deadliest shooting in state history, in which an Army reservist killed 18 people and injured 13 others at a bowling alley and bar and grill on Oct. 25 in Lewiston. The gunman was later found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Mills said she vetoed the bump stock proposal because despite its “well-intentioned nature,” she felt the bill’s language and the way it was developed “posed the risk for unintended errors.”
The governor has already signed a bill she sponsored that would strengthen the state’s yellow flag law, encourage background checks on private gun sales and make it a crime to recklessly sell a gun to someone who is prohibited from owning guns. to have. The bill also funds violence prevention initiatives and funds shelters for mental health crises.
Lawmakers never voted on a so-called red flag law. Red flag laws, which have been adopted by more than two dozen states, allow a family member to petition to have a person’s weapons removed during a psychiatric emergency.
The state’s yellow flag law differs in that police are in charge of the process, but the law has been updated to allow police to ask a judge for a warrant to take someone into protective custody.
That removes the barrier of a meeting between police and an individual to assess whether protective custody is needed, something that came into play when the Lewiston shooter refused to answer the door during a police welfare check more than a month before the shooting. The officer said no crime had been committed and he had no authority to enforce the matter.