Brewer police are behind a GOP lawmaker’s try to tighten gun legal guidelines
Police in Brewer are working by a Republican lawmaker on modifications to gun legal guidelines that goal to assist them cease an growing variety of armed drug traffickers in Maine.
Sen. Peter Lyford of Eddington has put two payments in on the advice of the division that might improve penalties for unlawful weapon possession and mimic a federal crime by permitting police right here to cost those that purchase weapons for individuals barred from having them.
Maine stands out as a comparatively liberal state with a few of the nation’s loosest gun legal guidelines. Gov. Janet Mills has dissuaded her fellow Democrats from advancing gun management measures since she took workplace in 2019. Some progressives are pushing these varieties of measures once more this 12 months, however the farthest-reaching ones look unlikely to get previous Mills’ veto pen.
This try may discover consensus in Augusta. Two teams on either side of the gun debate stated they didn’t but have stances on the payments however indicated settlement with Lyford and police on the issues dealing with legislation enforcement. The hassle comes after two completely different mass shootings in California on Saturday and Monday that killed 18 altogether.
One of many payments would enable the state to cost Mainers who buy a gun for another person. Many who make such “straw purchases” listed here are out-of-state drug traffickers who persuade Mainers to purchase them weapons, stated Sgt. Chris Martin, Brewer’s deputy chief. That is already a federal crime, however it’s often not prosecuted besides in high-level circumstances.
The second invoice would flip misdemeanor crimes round illegal firearm possession into felonies, permitting stronger enforcement towards an more and more major problem of armed drug sellers working in Maine with weapons they don’t legally personal. It’s a downside that has grown amid the opioid disaster and the unfold of fentanyl all through the state and nation.
“We have to acknowledge the connection between the drug enterprise, trafficking, organized crime, with the violence related to it,” Martin stated.
Martin has additionally really helpful that the invoice change state legislation to not outline marijuana customers as individuals prohibited from proudly owning firearms. The present language in state legislation mimics federal legislation, saying that anyone who’s an “illegal person or addicted” to a federally managed substance is committing against the law.
Lyford is conservative on weapons: He doesn’t help frequent gun-control measures, together with banning sure courses of firearms or proscribing high-capacity magazines, however he stated he’s supporting these limits with the intention to assist police struggle crime.
“We want legislation and order on this nation,” Lyford stated. “Something I can do to assist [Maine police officers], I’ll.”
Any new proposed limits on weapons usually draw crowds of gun-rights advocates to protest in Augusta. Opponents of latest laws usually level out Maine’s comparatively low gun murder price: 0.9 deaths per 100,000 every year, the second lowest price within the nation from 2015 to 2020, in keeping with federal knowledge. However Maine had the second-highest gun suicide price within the Northeast behind Vermont from 2015 to 2020, in keeping with that very same knowledge.
The complete textual content of Lyford’s payments has not been launched but. The gun-rights Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine will put all payments on the difficulty earlier than a committee and guarantee gun house owners who didn’t do something fallacious aren’t affected, stated David Trahan, the group’s govt director.
“The intentions, I feel from everybody, is that felons who’re prohibited shouldn’t be gaining access to a firearm,” he stated.
There are a number of different measures into account by lawmakers that seem to do the identical factor as Lyford’s, famous Lynn Ellis, legislative director of the Maine Gun Security Coalition, a gun management advocacy group, which can seemingly help a common background examine invoice from Home Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross, D-Portland, and a invoice that might impose a 72-hour ready interval earlier than shopping for weapons.
However typically, she stated the group sees prohibited individuals as an issue.
“We will probably be supporting payments that take a look at tightening up laws on protecting weapons from prohibited individuals,” Ellis stated.
