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The Feb. 28 Bangor Daily News article by Billy Kobin on the governor’s and Maine Legislature’s newly proposed gun safety bills includes a link to an National Rifle Association article about the bills. In the linked article, the NRA accuses the governor and legislators of being “gun-grabbing lawmakers” exercising a “gross abuse of power” to “strip citizens of their Second Amendment rights without due process.” I think such an attack is not only disrespectful, but dishonest. The NRA’s claim that the bills are unconstitutional is not true.
As to Gov. Janet Mills’ proposed amendment to Maine’s yellow-flag statute, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court has already held that the procedural steps in the statute provides constitutional due process of law. The governor’s bill does not change those procedural steps. As to the governor’s proposed extension of background checks to advertised private sales, the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 Bruen decision expressly states, in its concurrence, that background checks are constitutional, as they can prevent those who are not “law-abiding, responsible citizens” and thus have no Second Amendment rights, from having guns.
And as to the legislators’ proposed gun purchase three-day wait period bill, a federal court held in November that Colorado’s similar three-day wait period law is consistent with the Second Amendment. So the NRA’s assertion that these proposed laws “strip” citizens of their Second Amendment rights is not true, and should be dismissed in any legislative debate about the bills’ merits.
Peggy McGehee
Falmouth