What the research says about gun control ideas from Maine Democrats

AUGUSTA, Maine — Research on waiting period laws like the 72-hour mandate that Democratic lawmakers have proposed after Maine’s deadliest mass shooting on record has shown they can reduce gun suicides and homicides.

But the evidence is inconclusive on their ability to prevent mass shootings and also limited on the effectiveness of a separate bump stock ban that legislative Democrats unveiled Wednesday as part of a suite of policy responses in the wake of the Oct. 25 mass shooting in Lewiston.

Proposals that failed to pass the Democratic-led Legislature last year will get rigorous debate in the coming weeks. They signify efforts to not only respond to one incident but tackle broader issues of gun violence in a state with a hunting culture and lax gun laws. More than half of the 277 suicides here in 2021, the most recent year for which data is available, involved a firearm .

The new measures come after Maine — long viewed as one of the country’s safest states for its low crime rates — was rocked by two shootings in 2023. In April, a felon killed his parents and their two friends in Bowdoin before opening fire on Interstate 295 and wounding three people.

Six months later, a 40-year-old Army reservist whose family and peers had warned police repeatedly of his declining mental state and threats killed 18 people and injured 13 at a Lewiston bowling alley and bar in the country’s deadliest mass shooting of 2023. The gunman legally purchased the semi-automatic rifle he used in the shooting.

Sens. Peggy Rotundo, D-Lewiston, and Anne Carney, D-Cape Elizabeth, put forward bills to require 72-hour waiting periods for gun purchases and ban the sale of bump stocks or other devices attached to semi-automatic rifles that make them fire rapidly like machine guns. Similar proposals have failed in prior sessions .

Waiting periods are often intended to reduce suicides, violence and mass shootings by giving time for distraught buyers to “cool off” or for police to investigate illicit “straw” purchases and finish background checks that cannot be completed within the federal three-day window.

Studies have found inconclusive evidence on whether waiting periods can reduce mass shootings, often defined as having four or more fatalities not including the shooter, per the RAND Corp .

But a volume of research has found waiting periods can reduce firearm suicides , including a study examining data from 1977 to 2014 that found a significant effect on reducing gun suicides. Research has also pointed to moderate evidence on waiting periods leading to drops in total homicides but more limited evidence on reducing firearm homicides.

Studies have suggested waiting periods of between two to seven days can lower intimate partner gun homicide rates. Gun-rights advocates have argued waiting periods could delay a domestic violence victim in getting self-protection, but little empirical evidence for that exists.

Eleven states require waiting periods of varying lengths, several of which are facing lawsuits . The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday in a challenge to a bump stock rule implemented by former President Donald Trump’s administration after the nation’s deadliest-ever mass shooting in 2017 at a Las Vegas music festival .

Carney’s proposed ban on bump stocks and rapid-fire modifications is tacked on as an amendment to her existing proposal to require police to destroy all forfeited firearms. Research with strong designs on the effectiveness of bump stock bans is lacking.

But past rampages reveal a grim reality: Mass shootings involving large-capacity weapons rather than handguns produce higher death tolls on average .

“Therefore, since some attackers appear to want to maximize casualties by maintaining a high rate of fire, it seems likely that bump stocks would be attractive to them,” said RAND Corp. behavioral scientist Andrew Morral , who directs the National Collaborative on Gun Violence Research.

Rotundo’s bill, similar to a proposal that failed to pass last summer, exempts waiting periods for sales to police, security personnel and federally licensed firearm dealers. It is cosponsored by most Democratic lawmakers, including Senate President Troy Jackson, D-Allagash, whom the National Rifle Association has previously endorsed .

Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat who has worked on less-sweeping measures with the pro-gun rights Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine, did not take a position Wednesday on the new bills.  She unveiled her separate response to the Lewiston shooting during January’s State of the State speech, which notably includes extending background check mandates to advertised sales.

The early Republican reactions Wednesday to the newest bills indicated tepid support for the mental health-related funding in a broader measure from House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross, D-Portland, and firm opposition to the waiting period and bump stock proposals.

The NRA previously said it was “disappointed” by Trump’s bump stock ban, and it has opposed waiting periods by claiming studies have been flawed or inconclusive. House Minority Leader Billy Bob Faulkingham, R-Winter Harbor, said Rotundo’s waiting period bill should not be considered now because it is “clearly” the same measure defeated in 2023.

“The only thing it would successfully accomplish is to stop law-abiding citizens from protecting themselves,” Faulkingham said.

While the newest proposals may not have prevented the Lewiston gunman from legally purchasing his weapons months earlier, that should not stop the Legislature from trying to prevent future tragedies in Maine, Rotundo and her Democratic colleagues said.

The senator described Lewiston as “a community with broken hearts and shattered lives” where “many people are still afraid to go out in public.”

“All I can do is do everything in my power to reduce the level of gun violence in the state,” Rotundo said. “I feel that we owe that to the memories of those people who lost their lives on that horrific day.”