AUGUSTA, Maine — The Maine House of Representatives on Monday passed a proposal Gov. Janet Mills introduced after the state’s deadliest mass shooting on record to expand background checks to advertised gun sales, tweak the “yellow flag” law and fund violence prevention initiatives.
The House is also expected to vote later this week on other bills Democratic lawmakers introduced in the wake of the Lewiston mass shooting and that the Senate initially approved last week, such as a bump stock ban and requiring 72-hour waiting periods for gun purchases.
As the Legislature races to finish its work this month and adjourn for the year, lawmakers have not yet taken up a late effort from House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross, D-Portland, to pass a stronger “red flag” law allowing families to petition judges to take weapons away from loved ones deemed dangerous. Mills has not weighed in on that plan.
The House voted 73-66 on Monday to pass the governor’s bill after the Senate passed it mostly along party lines Friday by a 19-15 margin. Apart from expanding background checks, it would change Maine’s yellow flag law that Mills helped craft with gun-rights advocates in 2019 to make it easier for police to take people into protective custody, make it a felony instead of a misdemeanor to sell a gun to a prohibited person and open a crisis receiving center in Lewiston to treat people in mental health emergencies, among various provisions.
Supporters in the House noted the governor’s background check expansion does not apply to transfers between family members, a difference from a background check referendum Maine voters rejected in 2016.
Democratic lawmakers acknowledged it may not have prevented the October mass shooting in Lewiston but argued it will help prevent future violence, while Republicans argued it is another infringement on constitutional rights.
“For the victims, their families, the residents of Lewiston and all Mainers, we must pass this critical piece of legislation which has the power to save lives,” Assistant House Majority Leader Kristen Cloutier, D-Lewiston, said.
Mills’ approach is novel. Federal law makes licensed gun dealers perform them. Maine is among 29 states that do not exceed that. Of the 21 states that do, 16 cover all gun sales. None of them limit background check mandates to only advertised sales.
The State House debates come after President Joe Biden’s administration finalized last week a rule meant to close loopholes on tens of thousands of gun sales by requiring anyone who sells firearms predominantly to earn a profit – whether at a gun show or at a brick-and-mortar store — to be federally licensed and conduct background checks.
The 72-hour waiting period bill from Sen. Peggy Rotundo, D-Lewiston, narrowly passed the Senate on Friday by one vote, and it needs additional enactment votes in each chamber before reaching Mills. The House will also take up a proposed ban on bump stocks and other rapid-fire modification devices after the Senate OK’d that bill from Sen. Anne Carney, D-Cape Elizabeth.
A measure from Talbot Ross to fund a range of mental health and violence prevention initiatives awaits money in the final budget. Democratic lawmakers put forward numerous gun control bills in response to Maine’s deadliest mass shooting on record in which a 40-year-old Army reservist from Bowdoin killed 18 people and injured 13 at a Lewiston bowling alley and bar on Oct. 25 before police found him dead two days later of a self-inflicted gunshot wound
Family members and 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. Police said Card legally bought the rifle he used in the rampage months before the shooting, along with other weapons found by his body.
An additional proposal from Rep. Rebecca Millett, D-Cape Elizabeth, to let Mainers sue the firearm industry for injuries tied to illegal gun sales or “deceptive” marketing is not likely to pass after the House approved it before the Senate defeated it.
