The Maine Chiefs of Police Association today announced its support for Question 3, continuing its record as a reliable rubber stamp for all gun control proposals, regardless of merit. South Portland Chief Googins claimed that the background checks which Question 3 requires would keep guns out of the hands of criminals, ignoring the fact that background-checked sales are already the #1 source of crime guns, according to Federal statistics. Question 3 will do nothing to stop criminals from obtaining guns, because criminals don't mind breaking gun laws on their way to breaking much more serious laws.

What Question 3 will do is criminalize traditional activities by ordinary law-abiding Mainers, like loaning a rifle to a friend today to take hunting tomorrow. The so-called "hunting exception" is far, far narrower and more complicated than the proponents of Question 3 admit, and will result in Mainers unwittingly committing crimes. It will also strip young adults, 18 to 20 years of age, of their Constitutional right to own a handgun, among other problems.

Neither Chief Googins nor Portland Chief Sauschuck have any business weighing in on this issue using their official titles. Both suffer from a hopeless conflict of interest, as both are Board Members of a Maine gun control group. And both seem to have trouble obeying gun law themselves, having breached the confidentiality of Concealed Handgun Permit application data in 2015, in an attempt to defeat last year's Constitutional Carry bill.

Background checks are a New York solution to a problem that Maine doesn't have. We are one of the safest states in the union, with a low homicide rate which is the envy of most of the country. Our gun laws work. New York could learn from Maine; Maine has nothing to learn from New York.