This story will updated.
AUGUSTA, Maine — U.S. Sen. Angus King introduced a bill Thursday to regulate the sale of gas-operated semi-automatic guns, limit high-capacity magazines, ban bump stocks and create a gun buyback program in the wake of Maine’s deadliest mass shooting.
King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, had teased action on the weapons since the Oct. 25 mass shooting at a Lewiston bowling alley and bar in which a gunman used a military-style rifle to kill 18 people and injure 13 others. U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-New Mexico, joined King in introducing the bill, which is co-sponsored by U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet, D-Colorado, and Mark Kelly, D-Arizona.
The Gas-Operated Semi-Automatic Firearms Exclusion Act, or GOSAFE Act, will target “lethal capacity weapons like the one used in Lewiston and most of the deadliest mass shootings across the country” while protecting Second Amendment rights for law-abiding Americans, said King, who previously noted his opposition to a separate bill before Congress to ban the sale of 205 assault-style weapons by name.
“Nothing can bring back the lives of our family and friends, but responsible actions moving forward can reduce the likelihood of such a nightmare happening again in Maine or anywhere else,” King said.
The new bill has a few components, including exemptions for several weapons, King’s office said Thursday morning. The proposal would establish a list of prohibited semi-automatic firearms, prevent certain modifications of allowed firearms, prevent “unlawful” self-assembly of certain weapons and mandate that future “gas-operated designs” are approved before manufacture.
It would limit magazines to no more than 10 rounds of ammunition and outlaw conversion devices, such as Glock switches and bump stocks that allow guns to fire rapidly. Finally, it would set up a voluntary buyback program to allow gun owners to turn in and receive compensation for guns and magazines that would be banned under the legislation.
Exemptions would apply to semi-automatic shotguns, .22-caliber rimfire or less firearms, bolt-action rifles, recoil-operated handguns, rifles and shotguns with permanently fixed magazines of 10 rounds or less, and handguns with permanently fixed magazines of up to 15 rounds.
King told the Albuquerque Journal the bill would “grandfather in” all weapons that gun owners currently possess but would restrict the owners on to whom they could sell the weapons, adding he and Heinrich crafted the bill “pragmatically to stand up to the Supreme Court we have today.”
King and Heinrich’s bill is so far endorsed by gun violence prevention groups such as Sandy Hook Promise, Everytown for Gun Safety, March for Our Lives and several New Mexico police departments. Its passage is hardly guaranteed in a divided Senate and Republican-controlled House.
King and Heinrich will hold a virtual news conference with reporters at 1:15 p.m. Thursday to discuss the bill.
King had signaled he would take some sort of action on semi-automatic guns after the Lewiston mass shooting, telling an Instagram commenter “you won’t be disappointed much longer” after the person asked why he would not vote “to take weapons of war out of the hands of dangerous people?”
At a news conference the day after the mass shooting, U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, a moderate Democrat from Lewiston, said he would reverse his previous opposition to banning assault-style weapons, while U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, has declined to back such a ban.
Collins, who did not immediately comment Thursday on King’s bill, has said she supports banning bump stocks and high-capacity magazines, though she voted against magazine limits in 2013.
King and Heinrich’s bill is so far endorsed by gun violence prevention groups such as the Sandy Hook Promise Action Fund, Everytown for Gun Safety, March for Our Lives and several New Mexico police departments. Its passage is hardly guaranteed in a divided Senate and Republican-controlled House.
