Gun Owners of Maine's Response to Governor Mills' State of the State Address on Tuesday, Jan 30th.
These are Governor Mills’ proposals as written before her address. These are how she believes we should address criminals perpetrating violence with the use of firearms in Maine:
1)Establish an Injury and Violence Prevention Program – establish an Injury and Violence Prevention Program at the Maine Centers for Disease Control as a central hub for violence and injury data that can bring together the information being collected by diverse sectors of our state, including health care, education, social services, and criminal justice agencies;
2)Establish a Statewide Network of Crisis Receiving Centers – Crisis receiving centers provide prompt and appropriate care to people who are suffering a mental health crisis, instead of leaving that person to languish in an emergency department or a jail, as is too often the case;
3)Keep Firearms Out of the Hands of Dangerous People-- Close Gaps in the Extreme Risk Protection Order Law, address that gap by allowing law enforcement to seek the approval of a judge, in unusual circumstances, to take a person into protective custody. If then deemed dangerous by a medical practitioner and judge, law enforcement could remove their weapons, pending a full hearing before a court. This change will provide law enforcement with another tool to ensure that someone is taken into protective custody and their weapons are removed;
4)Address Private Sales – address this issue by requiring any sale of a firearm that is advertised – through Facebook, Craigslist, Uncle Henry’s, a gun show, and other means – to be checked against the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), the same system used by licensed firearm dealers. If enacted, it would ensure that when a gun is sold through an advertised, private sale, it cannot be sold to someone who is prohibited from having a firearm;
5)Incentivize Private Sellers to Verify a Buyer is Legally Allowed to Own a Gun -- Safe gun transfers from one family member to another, from one neighbor to another, or from one trusted friend to another are common among law-abiding gun owners in Maine. This would not change anything for people who are transferring a firearm to a relative or a friend who they know is allowed to own one. That longstanding tradition in Maine would remain the same. But it would mean that, if you are selling to a stranger, you should visit a licensed firearm dealer to check the NICS system, and make sure they are not a prohibited person, to avoid a felony charge and the possible prison time that comes along with it.
During her address, she also added that she would like to change the wording of the current law from willfully or knowingly to adding the word “recklessly” when transferring a firearm to a prohibited person. We would object to the addition of that language as the term “recklessly” is a broad, subjective term that leaves too much up to interpretation.
Gun Owners of Maine has no issue with items one and two on the Governor's list. People in crisis and/or those seeking treatment need and deserve to be cared for in an appropriate manner, so long as the information gathered isn’t used to centralize gun ownership information in an effort to form any type of registry.
We feel that Maine's "Extreme Risk Protection Order", known to some as Maine’s “Yellow Flag Law” has no gaps. It needs to be enforced in order to work, when it is utilized it is effective. Anything more stringent is an abuse of power and devoid of due process.
Yet again, what amounts to Universal Background Checks is being sought. As presented, the suggestions are unenforceable, do nothing to keep firearms out of the hands of criminals, and infringe on the rights of the law-abiding. Criminals do not submit to background checks if they know they aren’t going to pass them. Firearms are often purchased months to years before being used in criminal activity.
Some would say that "Universal" background checks aren't being sought, but when the proposal is worded to "encourage" people to get background checks for private sales by increasing the crime from a misdemeanor to a felony, and changing the wording to subjective nonsense, that is indeed what it amounts to.
This is a list of individuals who passed a background check and then went on to commit a crime:
Virginia Tech (2007):
Seung-Hui Cho passed a background check
Fort Hood, TX (2009):
Nidal Malik Hasan passed a background check
Binghamton, NY (2009):
Jiverly Wong passed a background check
Tucson, AZ (2011):
Jared L. Loughner passed a background check
Aurora, CO (2012):
James Holmes passed a background check
Newtown, CT [Sandy Hook] (2012):
Adam Lanza’s mother passed a background check
Washington, DC (2013):
Aaron Alexis passed a background check
Charleston, SC (2015):
Dylann Roof passed a background check
Roseberg, OR (2015):
Christopher Harper-Mercer passed a background check
San Bernardino, CA (2015):
Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik’s neighbor passed a background check (straw purchase)
Orlando, FL (2015):
Omar Mateen passed a background check
Las Vegas, NV (2017):
Stephen Paddock passed a background check
Sutherland Springs, TX (2017):
Devin Patrick Kelley passed a background check
Parkland, FL (2018):
Nikolas Cruz passed a background check
Santa Fe, TX (2018):
Dimitrios Pagourtzis’ father passed a background check
Pittsburgh, PA (2018):
Robert Gregory Bowers passed a background check
Thousand Oaks, CA (2018):
Ian David Long passed a background check
Virginia Beach, VA (2019):
DeWayne Craddock passed a background check
El Paso, TX (2019):
Patrick Crusius passed a background check
Dayton, OH (2019):
Connor Betts passed a background check
Atlanta, GA (2021):
Robert Aaron Long passed a background check
LEWISTON, ME (2023):
Robert Card passed a background check
If a person has not been flagged as prohibited, a background check will do nothing to prevent them from committing a crime. It is this fundamental difference in approaching the criminal use of firearms that separates us from those who would seek to take away our inalienable rights. The anti-rights crowd would seek to remove all firearms from public use (this is their inevitable goal), leaving criminals armed and the law-abiding defenseless. Please tell us again how background checks curb violence.
The truth is,Universal Background Checks are a stepping stone to a national gun registry, and we will oppose it vehemently. It was defeated at the ballot box, it was defeated last year in the legislature, and we will continue to work to defeat any such proposal in the future.
The Gun Owners of Maine Board of Directors
If you have any questions email info@gunownersofmaine.org
