A federal appeals court has ruled that Maine’s law requiring a three-day waiting period between firearm purchases and taking possession of a gun to be constitutional.
On April 3, a three-judge panel of the Boston-based 1st Circuit Court of Appeals reversed last year’s decision by Maine’s chief federal judge that blocked enforcement of the law on Second Amendment grounds. In a nutshell, the circuit court ruled that the law is a “burden on, but not an infringement of, the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.”
In what seems to be strained logic, the court ruled that the law regulates conduct before a person keeps and bears arms, thus not infringing upon actually keeping and bearing arms.
“We agree with the Attorney General’s view that laws regulating the purchase or acquisition of firearms do not target conduct covered by the Second Amendment’s ‘plain text,’” the court wrote in the case Beckwith v. Frey. “The Amendment’s plain text guarantees an individual’s ability to keep and bear arms, which means to have a carry guns. The Act does not address this conduct. Rather, the Act imposes a limitation in some circumstances on when a person can acquire a firearm after the person purchased it. The act thus regulates conduct that occurs before a person keeps or carries a gun.”
Of course, anti-gun supporters of the law cheered the court’s ruling as a major step for so-called “gun safety.”
“We’re relieved to see the federal court of appeals make the correct decision in this case,” the Maine Gun Safety Coalition (MGSC) said in a written statement. “Waiting periods between purchase and possession don’t prevent anyone from exercising their right to own a gun. Instead, they provide a valuable cooling off period that helps prevent impulsive acts of violence.
“Allowing this common-sense law to finally go into effect is an important way to help prevent suicides and other forms of gun violence in Maine.”
Gun-rights groups, on the other hand, disagreed with the ruling and vowed to appeal.
I don’t think it’ll hold up in time, obviously,” David Trahan, executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine (SAM), told newscentermaine.com. “This isn’t the end of the story, and we’ll see what the next layer of court says.”
Last year, a three-judge panel of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals came to the opposite conclusion in Ortega v. Grisham, a lawsuit challenging New Mexico’s seven-day waiting period.
“Cooling-off periods infringe on the Second Amendment by preventing the lawful acquisition of firearms,” the court ruling stated. “Cooling off periods do not fit into any historically grounded exceptions to the right to keep and bear arms, and burden conduct within the Second Amendment’s scope. In this preliminary posture, we conclude that New Mexico’s Waiting Period Act is likely an unconstitutional burden on the Second Amendment rights of its citizens. We also conclude the other preliminary injunction factors are met and that Plaintiffs are entitled to an injunction.”
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