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After a horrific mass shooting in Lewiston in October, many questions are being asked about Maine’s gun laws and whether they should be strengthened. Several bills on gun restrictions, from Democratic lawmakers and the governor, will be the subject of public hearings this week.
One question we’ve asked repeatedly, including before the Lewiston shooting, is why law enforcement departments would sell guns that they have legally seized rather than destroying them. It seems counterintuitive when so many are working to reduce gun violence.
“We have to wonder why, at a time of rising gun violence, law enforcement departments would be returning guns to circulation rather than destroying them,” we wrote in August, before the Oct. 25 shooting that left 18 people dead and 13 injured.
The sale of guns by Maine law enforcement agencies was brought to light by the BDN Maine Focus reporting on sales by the Oxford County Sheriff’s Office that lacked the required paperwork.
The Oxford County Sheriff’s Office sold 52 guns to a local gun dealer in 2021 without the appropriate tracking and recordkeeping, BDN Maine Focus editor Erin Rhoda reported in August. Oxford County commissioners ha ve since as ked Gov. Janet Mills to remove elected Sheriff Christopher Wainwright from office in part for what they described as his “unauthorized, illegal trade of firearms.”
The question about destroying guns caught the attention of Sen. Anne Carney, D-Cape Elizabeth. She has sponsored a bill, LD 2086, that would require all forfeited guns in Maine to be destroyed. She also recently amended the bill to ban bump stocks or other rapid-fire devices attached to semi-automatic weapons as part of a suite of legislative proposals filed in the wake of the Lewiston mass shooting.
While we support the idea of banning bump stocks, which essentially turn semi-automatic weapons into automatic weapons, we fear that adding it to Carney’s bill clouds the clear message on stopping the sale of forfeited firearms.
With some exceptions, Maine law requires that machine guns and guns used in murders and homicides be destroyed. But other guns that are forfeited to law enforcement officials are routinely sold. These sales can be an important source of revenue for some agencies, but they put these guns back into circulation, where they can be misused.
Under federal law, firearms that are forfeited to federal law enforcement agencies are not sold, and most are destroyed.
“The Department has concluded that the forfeiture of firearms and ammunition involved in crime constitutes a compelling law enforcement interest,” to remove them from circulation, the Department of Justice says in its 2023 Asset Forfeiture Policy Manual.
If the Department of Justice has a compelling interest in removing from circulation firearms used in a crime and legally seized, state and local law enforcement agencies should share that interest.
Some states and larger cities routinely destroy guns that have been seized after they were used in crimes. Philadelphia melts down between 3,000 to 6,000 firearms each year. In New York City, melted guns are used to make manhole covers, hangers and other items.
While many police departments in Maine already send their firearms to be destroyed, a recent investigation by The New York Times found that some guns are not fully destroyed. One company, GunBusters, which has a location in Hermon, has disassembled some guns, pulverized parts and sold the rest of the components as gun kits.
While Carney’s bill does not currently include penalties for violations of the proposed ban, it should be amended to include them. And those penalties must be crafted in a way to help ensure that when police departments surrender guns to be destroyed, those guns are in fact fully destroyed
Maine lawmakers are set to consider numerous bills on gun safety and mental health improvements in the wake of the Lewiston tragedy. Even before that tragedy, it has been clear to us that Maine should require that forfeited guns to be destroyed rather than resold. Other states and cities take this approach, and the federal government destroys most of the guns it seizes. Maine should do the same.
