Today is your last chance to contact Governor Janet Mills and urge her to veto LD 2238 (72 hour waiting periods) and LD 2086 (machine gun redefinition). By law, Governor Mills must either sign or veto these bills by the end of the day. If passed, these bills will infringe on the Second Amendment rights of Mainers and decimate the state's hunting tourism industry. NRA members and gun rights supporters are urged to call Governor Mills NOW at 207-287-3531 and politely request that she vetoes these extreme bills.
LD 2238 delays Second Amendment rights by imposing a three-day waiting period before an individual may receive a firearm that they lawfully purchase, with limited exemptions. There is no evidence that waiting periods reduce violent crime. If passed, LD 2238 would deny the right of self-defense to abuse victims or any individual facing an imminent threat. Additionally, waiting periods would destroy Maine’s hunting tourism industry because guides would be unable to provide hunters with firearms and local firearm dealers would be unable to sell and transfer firearms in a timely manner.
LD 2086, introduced by leading gun-grabbing politician Sen. Anne Carney, creates a backdoor ban on commonly owned firearms and firearm parts by redefining a “machine gun” to include any semi-automatic firearm that includes parts that can “increase the rate of fire." This poorly written bill attempts to sneak a so-called “rapid-fire modification ban” past Mainers in a bill completely unrelated to firearm parts. As written, this bill would ban legally and commonly owned firearm parts used for training, hunting, or self-defense, and could be utilized to ban shotguns and other firearms capable of firing birdshot or snake shot.
Please stay tuned to the NRA-ILA website and your inbox for updates as this situation progresses.