AUGUSTA, Maine — The Maine Senate on Friday approved proposals to ban bump stocks and require 72-hour waiting periods for gun purchases in the wake of the Lewiston mass shooting but defeated a measure to allow residents to sue gunmakers over injuries tied to illegal firearm sales.
Sen. Anne Carney, D-Cape Elizabeth, introduced the ban on bump stocks or other devices that cause semi-automatic weapons to fire rapidly like machine guns by adding it to her bill requiring police to destroy all forfeited firearms, rather than only ones used in homicides and murders.
The Senate voted 19-15 to pass it Friday, one of several gun control bills introduced after the Oct. 25 mass shooting in Lewiston. Two Democrats, Sens. Craig Hickman of Winthrop and Tim Nangle of Windham, opposed the bill.
The chamber later voted 17-16 to pass the 72-hour waiting period bill from Sen. Peggy Rotundo, D-Lewiston. The Democratic opponents were Hickman, Joe Baldacci of Bangor, Chip Curry of Belfast and Cameron Reny of Bristol.
The Democratic-controlled Legislature defeated bump stock and waiting period bills as recently as last year, but the Lewiston shooting sharply changed the political picture. The bills face additional votes in the House and Senate before reaching Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat who has been hesitant in previous years to support more sweeping gun-control bills.
The House on Thursday passed a bill from Rep. Rebecca Millett, D-Cape Elizabeth, to let residents sue gunmakers over injuries tied to illegal firearm sales and “deceptive” marketing. But the Senate defeated it Friday in a 13-20 vote.
The state-level debates in Maine come as the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule by this summer on a challenge to a bump stock ban implemented under then-President Donald Trump’s administration after the 2017 mass shooting at a Las Vegas country music festival that left 60 dead and hundreds injured.
The bump stock and waiting period bills came as part of a suite of gun control legislation from Democrats in response to Maine’s deadliest mass shooting on record in which a 40-year-old Army reservist from Bowdoin killed 18 and injured 13 at a Lewiston bowling alley and bar before police found him dead two days later of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Family members and military peers of Robert Card II had warned police multiple times of his declining mental state, threats and gun arsenal in the months before the mass shooting. During the rampage, Card used a rifle loaded with .308 Winchester rounds, which are commonly used by military and police snipers as well as big game hunters. He legally purchased that gun as well as the handgun and AR-15-style rifle found by his body, per police.
Other bills would require 72-hour waiting periods for firearm purchases and study the potential creation of a process for suicidal people to add their names to a do-not-sell list for guns, with Mills also proposing the expansion of background checks to advertised gun sales, tweaking Maine’s “yellow flag” law to make it easier for police to take people into protective custody and making it a felony to sell a gun to a person prohibited from possessing firearms.
The Senate also voted Friday to pass the governor’s bill. Lawmakers have not yet voted on a late effort from House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross, D-Portland, to create a “red flag” law that would allow families to petition a judge to take away weapons from loved ones deemed dangerous, rather than requiring police under the yellow flag law to take the person into protective custody before they receive a mental health evaluation and then go before a court.
A package of mental health and violence prevention initiatives from Talbot Ross already sailed through each chamber and awaits funding in the final budget.