Maine used to be a very pro-gun state despite voting Democrat in pretty much every election. It was the one hint you could find that maybe, just maybe, Democrats weren't universally anti-Second Amendment.
That changed after the Lewiston shooting. They passed a lot of gun control, including a 72-hour waiting period. That's being fought, and the state just took a setback there.
See, a previous court put a halt to enforcing the waiting period. Now that the case is moving up the judicial chain, the state hoped the court would reinstate it. Considering the circuit court up that way, it wasn't unreasonable to think they'd get it.
Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey had appealed an earlier ruling by a federal judge that suspended Maine's new law requiring gun buyers to wait three days before getting a firearm.
But now, a three-judge appeals panel has rejected the request to at least temporarily reinstate the law.
This is not what anyone expected to happen. The First Circuit Court of Appeals is a pretty anti-gun court, all things considered, so it seemed likely that they'd allow the law to go into effect pending the outcome of the case.
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Instead, they did this.
Now, what does this mean?
First, it means that they can't enforce the waiting period in Maine. (Duh!)
But that's all it really means.
It could be an indication that the court will overturn the waiting period law, which wouldn't be completely shocking considering both this move and the standards laid down in NYSRPA vs. Bruen. It's not what the First Circuit usually does, but the legal precedents seem pretty clear to this layman, so this is very, very possible.
However, it could also be that they simply figure there's less potential damage, overall, of allowing the halt to stand while they decide than allowing it to go into effect, hear the case, then rule that it's unconstitutional, but they ultimately will decide to uphold the law.
Of course, that wouldn't be the end of anything at that point because, frankly, waiting periods are freaking stupid, especially if you're trying to claim you need it because of a mass murder like Lewiston, especially when the killer owned his guns for years before he flipped out and started murdering people in public places.
But they're also going to be difficult to uphold under the history, text, and tradition standard laid down in the Bruen decision. That requires a legal analog of some sort from either the time of the Second or 14th Amendments' ratification. I just don't see them finding any such thing, so sooner or later, one would imagine it being tossed.
Then again, the Supreme Court hasn't really delivered like many of us thought it would, so who knows if they'd even take the case?
Either way, what's happening now is good news for gun rights supporters in Maine. With a little luck, they'll keep getting good news because frankly, they need it at this point.
Maine used to be fairly pro-gun, but now we see that most Democrats are willing to just wait to pounce and pour infringement upon infringement of the Second Amendment the moment they can.
