The BDN Opinion section operates independently and does not set newsroom policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the newspaper or on bangordailynews.com.
Geoff Gratwick is a retired rheumatologist and past member of the state Senate from Bangor. Peter Fromuth of Yarmouth is an attorney.
Getting too far ahead of your constituents is an occupational hazard that elected representatives like to avoid. But on two critical gun safety proposals — universal background checks ( LD 168) and a 72-hour waiting period – LD 60 there seems little risk. A recent poll of 799 registered Maine voters conducted by Pan Atlantic Research showed overwhelming public support for both.
The message from voters is unmistakable: four times as many Mainers want universal criminal background checks as oppose them: 72 percent to 18 percent. Respondents with guns at home favor such a law by an even greater margin 72 percent to 16 percent. The two congressional districts, often at odds on issues, were aligned on this one: 68 percent support in the 2nd Congressional District and 72 percent in CD 1. Nor did party labels seem to matter much, Republican support was 67 percent, independents favored by 75 percent, Democrats by 76 percent. Geographically, the pattern was the same, ranging from 76 percent support in western Maine to 63 percent in the south.
Criminal background checks won’t stop gun violence but are a potent antidote to criminals’ exploitation of gaps in our gun laws; they would help law enforcement and would make all of us safer. We already ban gun purchases by dangerous people such as fugitives, felons, persons convicted of violent misdemeanors or domestic abuse, who cannot buy firearms from a licensed dealer because they would fail the criminal background checks. So, they buy their guns privately. By failing to require criminal background checks for all gun buyers Maine defeats its own safety goal. Maine voters get it; they want this loophole closed.
In the same poll, Mainers also said “Yes” to the survey’s second question: should there be a 72-hour waiting period between purchase and delivery of a gun? The results were similar: support in CD 2 was 70 percent, in CD 1 it was 74 percent. Mainers with guns at home welcomed it by 65 percent to 21 percent. Majorities were strong across all parties: Republicans favored it by 58 percent to 29 percent, independents 76 percent to 17 percent, Democrats 91 percent to 9 percent. Again, every region is on board; Mainers in the south chose waiting periods by a six to one margin, 77 to 12 percent; support was lowest in central Maine but even there it out-numbered opposition by almost three to one, 62 to 23 percent.
Waiting periods save lives. According to the most recent data, suicide deaths in Maine are a much higher percentage of overall gun deaths than the national average, Suicides account for 86% of all Maine firearm deaths, compared to about 60 percent nationally. Suicide attempts are often impulsive, especially for kids. But crises are often transient, so the desire, even the attempt, to do self-harm is generally survivable — unless a gun is available. Guns don’t offer do-overs; in a recent study 89.6 percent of suicidal acts with a firearm ended in death. By contrast, a comparison of gun suicide rates by state, show that states with pre- or post-purchase waiting periods typically have significantly lower rates of both gun suicide and overall suicide than states that don’t.
Two other extremely important gun safety proposals are on the House floor this week, though neither were included in the survey. One of these is a prohibition on the sale of a firearm to a person whom the seller knows or has reason to believe is legally barred from having one, LD 22. These are not people with parking tickets, they are felons, fugitives, violent misdemeanants, and similar individuals. Federal law bars selling guns to them, inexplicably, Maine law does not.
The second bill, LD 1340, would prohibit the sale or possession of devices to convert semi-automatic guns into military grade, machine-gun equivalents. These devices can be purchased cheaply or made in your home with a 3D printer and do-it-yourself materials. Opponents maintain that the firing capacity added by a device is not significant. This is a falsehood. Weapons modified with these devices can discharge up to 1,200 rounds per minute.
On gun safety our representatives are not ahead of their constituents, in fact, they are far behind. It’s past time for them to catch up.
