Nearly one month since a gunman in Lewiston used a semi-automatic rifle to kill 18 people and injure 13 in Maine’s deadliest mass shooting on record, U.S. Sen. Angus King has yet to unveil a proposal on assault-style weapons that he has teased.
King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, and U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican, have otherwise made clear they do not support a sweeping measure before Congress to ban the sale of 205 military-style weapons by name. Instead, they prefer targeting specific components of the firearms.
The Oct. 25 mass shooting at a Lewiston bowling alley spotlighted the mixed views of Maine’s two senators and other elected officials. Rep. Jared Golden, a Democrat from the 2nd District, made national news by announcing he backed an assault weapons ban in a stunning reversal.
Limits like that are not going to pass in a divided Congress, where concerns about a government shutdown and disputes over aid to Israel and Ukraine are the major topics. But the episode is already showing how the deadliest shooting in Maine history is reverberating politically in a Democratic-led state that has long stood out for having loose gun laws.
After the Lewiston mass shooting, an Instagram commenter asked King, who manages his own account on the site, why he was “speaking in solidarity” with the Lewiston community “if you’re not going to vote to take weapons of war out of the hands of dangerous people?”
“You won’t be disappointed much longer,” the senator replied.
But he has not unveiled a bill or given more specifics since then. King spokesperson Matthew Felling only said Wednesday that “conversations are ongoing.”
King, who defeated Collins in 1994 to become Maine’s governor, has signaled support for universal background checks and hinted at wanting to propose a bill to target the “functionality” and features of the automatic and semi-automatic rifles used in some of the nation’s deadliest mass shootings. That could include bump stocks and high-capacity magazines.
Shortly after taking office as a senator in 2013, King outlined a gun control agenda that included expanding background checks to most private sales and limiting magazines to no more than 10 rounds. However, he resisted a ban on so-called assault weapons because many have “the same firing mechanism and functionality” as many hunting rifles used by Mainers.
At a news conference the day after the mass shooting in which Golden, a centrist Democrat who lives in Lewiston, announced his shift on assault weapons, Collins declined to back such a ban and instead said she supports banning bump stocks and high-capacity magazines.
Her record on guns is more nuanced than those of her more conservative peers. She voted against limits on high-capacity magazines in 2013 but voted that same year for a bill creating near-universal background checks that failed due to a Republican-led filibuster.
Collins supported the failed effort in 2004 to extend the 1994 assault-style weapons ban but voted the next year for a bill then-President George W. Bush later signed to prohibit lawsuits against gun manufacturers, distributors and dealers over misuse of their products.
The senator was also a longtime friend of the late Maine businessman Richard Dyke, who led Bushmaster Firearms and was instrumental in turning the AR-15 into America’s top-selling rifle, as ProPublica reported Tuesday.
Collins’ office said Wednesday she did not have updates on stances or proposals following the Lewiston shooting. A spokesperson noted a letter Collins and King sent Nov. 2 to the Army’s inspector general asks for a review of the shooting to help inform future legislation.
The Army Reserve has since opened two internal investigations into what happened before the shooting. On several occasions in the months before the rampage, family and peers had warned police about the increasing paranoia of 40-year-old Robert R. Card II, an Army reservist from Bowdoin, and his access to guns. After a two-day manhunt, Card was found dead in nearby Lisbon from a self-inflicted gunshot.
King and Collins said they supported Gov. Janet Mills’ decision to form an independent commission that met for the first time Monday to review the lead-up and response to the October shooting.
Maine gun-control proponents also want an assault-style weapons ban, a red flag law and 72-hour waiting periods for firearm purchases, while the pro-gun rights Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine and Mills, a Democrat who is more conservative on gun policy, have discussed less sweeping measures since Lewiston and April’s quadruple homicide in Bowdoin.
