Maine’s Democratic legislators have returned once again to one of their favorite legislative priorities: cracking down on Second Amendment rights. Multiple bills came before the Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, including a ban on magazines that hold more than ten rounds.

“From the Las Vegas Music Festival to the Pulse Night Club in Orlando, to Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Connecticut, to Lewiston, Maine, the common denominator connecting these and dozens of other mass shootings in the United States is that the gunmen loaded their firearms with large capacity magazines,” said Rep. Matthew Beck (D-South Portland), presenting his bill during a public hearing on Wednesday.

Rep. Beck’s bill, LD 1109, drew co-sponsorships from six Democrats and would make the possession, sale, or purchase of any “large-capacity ammunition feeding device” illegal. This includes any device, such as a magazine, that can hold more than ten rounds of ammunition or that can be “easily” modified to hold over ten rounds.

Despite the bill’s definition of a high-capacity feeding device, magazines ranging from 10-30 rounds, depending on the type of firearm, are often considered and sold as standard capacity.

The bill provides a 180-day grace period for gun owners to hand in their magazines before they face potential Class D misdemeanor charges if they do not comply. Compliance would likely be extremely difficult or even impossible to enforce, as the state does not have records of the magazines owned by every Mainer.

It does include exceptions for law enforcement, licensed dealers transporting the magazines for sale in a different state, and active-duty military personnel. Beck said he might be willing to amend the text to include an exception for shooters who participate in recreational shooting competitions, though that was not included in the current bill.

The highly controversial bill, along with the other firearm-related bills considered on Wednesday, drew hundreds of testimonies from both gun control and gun rights activists.

“I am also a gun owner and responsible hunter, but I believe in limits to my
Second Amendment Rights. We will keep trying to save lives. Still, we implore this
Legislature and every subsequent Legislature to recognize that the 2nd Amendment can
and should be balanced against each life taken by gun violence,” said Anne Sedlack, Director of Advocacy for the Maine Medical Association, testifying in support of the ban.

The Maine Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics also supported the ban, stating that it is “common sense” and asserting that it would decrease high-fatality shootings.

“The American Academy of Pediatrics supports evidence-based and common-sense gun safety legislation that can help address the epidemic of gun violence – now the leading cause of death for children and teens in the United States. We believe this legislation meets that goal,” said Joe Anderson, speaking for the health organization.

The Maine Gun Safety Coalition, one of Maine’s most prominent anti-Second Amendment groups, known for overseeing the negligent discharge of a black powder rifle into parked vehicles, added its voice in support of the ban.

“Two other critical bills before you today would restrict rapid fire modification devices,
which includes a common-sense restoration of the restriction on machine gun
conversion devices, called bump stocks, and a restriction on large capacity
magazines, a proposal that s been passed in many other states to successfully deter
would-be mass shooters,” said the organization, testifying on the magazine restrictions along with a bill to redefine the term “machine gun.”

Equality Maine, a far-left LGBTQ activist group that pushes radical gender ideology for minors, also testified on the bill, claiming, without evidence, that the LGBTQ community is disproportionately affected by gun violence.

“The combination of a lack of adequate laws to prevent gun violence and animosity towards the LGBTQ+ community has led to the loss of lives as well as immense harm and trauma caused by violence,” said Equality Maine.

While many Mainers and organizations supported the ban on “high-capacity” magazines, there was also no shortage of opponents supporting firearm rights.

“Large-capacity is a fine term for capturing the attention of the hand-wringing,
pearl-clutching busybodies that the anti-gun crowd target, implying increased danger
due to increased size,” said Richard Smith of Beals.

“No gun laws can make the world a safer place, no limits on ammunition capacity, can
eliminate danger. The only thing LD 1109 can do is infringe on the rights of Mainers,
which is all it is really intended to do in the first place,” he added.

“With no proven benefits, legislation arbitrarily limiting the capacity of magazines places an undue burden on law-abiding citizens. It requires responsible rearm owners to purchase additional and expensive equipment for their rearms to be operational and comply with legislation. Elected officials should vote ought not to pass, and move on with fixing some of the real issues,” said Jeremy Burlingham of Waldo.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation also added its voice to the opposition.

“Maine legislators have decided that anything over 10 rounds is too high and thus any law-abiding citizen in possession of a larger magazine will be involved in criminal acts. What exactly is the basis for the arbitrary standard of no more than l0 round magazines? Magazines come in many different capacities and serve many different purposes, such as home defense, collecting, and participation in the shooting sports,” said Jake McGuigan speaking on behalf of the organization.

“Instead of wasting state resources on legislation that will only make legislators feel like they did something, how about making sure the necessary checks and balances are in place to deal with all the warning signs present in many of these perpetrators,” he added.

Sheriff Scott Nichols argued against the bill, claiming that it would violate a federal ruling and negatively affect the vast majority of law-abiding gun owners in the state.

“The court ruled that Heller established a test regarding arms in “common use” today, not in the past. If semiautomatic rifles and handguns that accept detachable magazines are in common use today, they are protected. Their ubiquity, and their being ‘in common use’, confirms their protected status under the Second Amendment,” said Nichols.

He also questioned how the state would compensate gun owners for the magazines they would be required to surrender.

The other gun-grab measures considered on Wednesday included Rep. Samuel Zager’s (D-Portland) LD 1126 and Sen. Anne Carney’s (D-Cumberland) LD 677.

LD 1126 would prohibit the sale or possession of unfinished firearm frames or receivers that do not include a serial number, in an attempt to crack down on the untraceable “ghost guns” often targeted by gun control advocates.

LD 677 would redefine the term “machine gun” in Maine law to include any parts that could increase the fire rate of semi-automatic rifles, such as bump stocks that use the force of recoil to help the user pull the trigger faster.

The Republican-led LD 953, sponsored by Sen. David Haggan (R-Penobscot) and considered at the same hearing, proposes an alternate and far less broad redefinition of “machine gun” that only includes firearms or firearm parts that fire or allow a gun to be fired more than once with a single pull of the trigger. That definition would, unlike the Democrat bill, exclude devices such as bump stocks that simply increase the rate at which a trigger can be pulled.

The new gun-grab bills continue a trend from the previous legislative session, inspired by the October 2023 Lewiston shooting, that saw Democrats pushing harder to restrict Second Amendment rights.

That session saw the passage of a new 72-hour waiting period bill that requires a buyer to wait three days after the purchase of a firearm to actually receive it.

The waiting period law has since faced an injunction from a federal judge.