Maine Waiting Period Law Injunction Holds
The Great Maine Gun Control Debate continues to drag on through courtrooms, and at this point, despite their best efforts, the state’s lawyers are on their back foot. They’ve just suffered another setback in court that sees the state’s constitutionally-suspect firearms purchase waiting period law still on hold thanks to an injunction.
Gun law debates @ TFB:
- Judge Strikes Down New Jersey’s AR-15 Ban
- Wisconsin Law Changes: Go Fishing, Legally Packing
- The Legal Brief – Carrying a Modified Gun
- New York Forced To Allow Non-Resident Carry After Supreme Court Ruling
Waiting period wrangling
The tale starts back in August of 2024 when Maine saw a mandatory firearms purchasing waiting period come into effect. Here’s the part of the law that matters:
“A seller may not knowingly deliver a firearm to a buyer pursuant to an agreement sooner than 72 hours after the agreement. The 72-hour waiting period must be concurrent with any waiting period imposed by any background check process required by federal or state law.”
So, buy your gun on Sunday morning, and you won’t be able to get it until Wednesday morning.
At the time of the law’s passing, Governor Janet Mills did not sign it; she allowed it to pass but said it was constitutionally suspect. And in the months since, there has indeed been plenty of legal wrangling over the law. In November of 2024, gun owners launched a lawsuit asking that the waiting period be struck down.
In February, a district court judge granted them an injunction against the state’s gun control, meaning that until the lawsuit was decided, Maine’s waiting period would be on hold.
Further developments
Since then, Maine’s government lawyer followed through with an appeal to have the injunction struck down, while they wait for the case to actually make it into Boston’s First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. That meant they ended back up in front of the same judge who’d granted the initial injunction, repeating their demands that the 72-hour waiting period stand.
They got the same result. In Judge Lance Walker’s ruling (read it here), he pointed out the obvious fact that acquiring a firearm is a necessary part of the process of keeping and bearing arms, and that “If the Act is unconstitutional—which it likely is—it will curtail the exercise of rights preserved under the Second Amendment … on a regular, steady, and ongoing daily basis.”
So now Mainers wait for the Boston court to make its ruling, and where it all goes from there. But at this point, it appears as if the courts are not looking kindly on the state’s anti-gun measures.
