Facing an onslaught of anti-gun measures in the state legislature following last October’s mass murder in Lewiston, Maine, lawful gun owners in the state are planning a rally on Thursday to show their support for gun owners’ rights.
The Save The Second Amendment rally is set for 10 a.m. Thursday at the Maine State House. Following the rally, participants will move to the Judiciary Committee public hearing set for 11:30.
According to Laura Whitcomb, president of Gun Owners of Maine, many of the measures currently under consideration would be detrimental to the lawful gun owners her group represents.
One piece of legislation sounds fairly innocuous based on the title, but also has negative ramifications. LD 2119 is called the “Act to Support Suicide Prevention by Allowing the Voluntary Waiver of Firearms Rights.”
“We find it to be problematic because there’s nothing saying that somebody’s not going to be coerced into giving up that right,” Whitcomb said. “And then once that right is given up under this legislation, there’s no path to get it back. So, if you find yourself to be in a rough spot, say when you’re 25, when you’re 30, 35, 40 you might seek to regain those rights after you voluntarily forfeited them and there’s no path to do that.”
Another bill, LD 2086, also sounds pretty harmless. The original bill would amend the law governing the disposition of forfeited firearms, but a poison-pill amendment has completely changed what the measure would do.
“So, we’re dealing with firearms that have been forfeited, firearms that have been seized, as a result of a crime,” Whitcomb said. “Then we found out yesterday that they are actually putting forth an amendment to that bill that would seek to redefine what a machine gun is in Maine. Basically, binary triggers would be illegal, and they’re trying to define a semi-automatic rifle would be the same thing as a machine gun if its capabilities are ‘similar to a machine gun.’ That word ‘similar’ might mean something different to you than it does to me.”
Other measures under consideration would impose a three-day waiting period on gun purchases, create an “Office of Violence Prevention,” a weaponized government agency tasked to strip gun owners of their Second Amendment rights and implement a red-flag law and so-called “universal” background checks.