While President Barack Obama met with officials in Washington on Monday to complete new gun control measures that he plans to implement through executive orders, some Maine firearms dealers said more regulation is unnecessary.
“We don’t need any more gun laws. We need to enforce what we already have,” said Bill LeRose, who has operated Precision Tool Grinding and Bill’s Gun Shop on River Road in Orrington since 1988.
“There are too many laws already. It’s ridiculous,” said Ben LeBlanc, who has sold guns at Ben’s Trading Post on Main Street in Presque Isle for more than 10 years.
Obama plans to unveil his gun control plans this week and discuss them during a one-hour live town hall gathering at 8 p.m. Thursday at George Mason University in Virginia, the White House announced.
The president is expected to include measures that would require certain private gun sellers who advertise or rent tables at gun shows to become licensed dealers and conduct background checks on buyers, which already is required of all certified gun dealers. The president’s plan appears to be similar but less strict than a proposed referendum that may go before Maine voters in November that would require background checks on all private gun sales in Maine with the exception of those involving family members.
Judi and Wayne Richardson of South Portland are citizen sponsors of the proposed 2016 ballot measure. Their daughter Darien Richardson was shot with .45-caliber pistol while she slept in her Portland apartment in January 2010. The case has never been solved.
Investigators were able to pinpoint the original 2008 sale of the gun used to kill Richardson and another Portlander in a separate case a month later, but they reached a dead end after the original buyer sold it to someone else.
Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap said Monday that the couple, supported by Maine Moms Demand Action, which describes itself as a nonpartisan movement of Americans demanding reasonable solutions to gun violence, have until Feb. 1 to turn in the 61,123 signatures needed to put the question before residents this fall.
The proposed Maine initiative would require all unlicensed sellers to meet the buyer and complete the sale at a licensed gun dealer, who would run a background check through the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which was put into place in November 1998.
People who are convicted felons, involuntarily committed to mental institutions, addicted to illegal drugs, dishonorably discharged from the military or in the country illegally are barred from owning guns.
Typically, the background check takes about 10 minutes, LeRose said, adding that he’s had only one check denied since he has been running them.
“Most [criminals] do realize there is a background check, so they don’t even try,” the longtime gun shop owner said. “They’re pretty thorough.”
Any licensed gun dealer who participates in a gun show must still run a background check on gun sales, but smaller, private collectors who set up tables aren’t required to do so. Several years ago, organizers of the Bangor Gun Show began requiring gun buyers to get background checks, with the larger dealers offering free background checks to private sellers, said Charles Rumsey, who, along with his wife, has organized the Bangor Gun Show since 1994.
“Every gun that goes out the door goes through a NICS check,” Rumsey said recently of Bangor’s annual gun show, which is in its 38th year.
There are loopholes for those who want to avoid a background check, LeRose said.
“Anybody can buy a gun from Uncle Henry’s,” the Orrington gun shop owner said.
Whether the president’s proposed regulations would affect Uncle Henry’s Weekly Swap or Sell It Guide, which is based in Augusta and has an entire section just for firearms, is unknown. People have purchased guns from individuals using the classified ad-style trade publication, and those guns have ended up at out-of-state crime scenes, police in New England said in 2006.
The manager of Uncle Henry’s declined to comment on Monday.
A Maine law enforcement official said he supports efforts to expand background checks.
“I just think that anywhere there is a loophole that has to do with safety it has to be looked at — that is a no-brainer,” Bucksport Police Chief Sean Geagan said Monday. “It’s in our best interest not only as a state but a country to look at it, and fill in the holes to make everyone safer.”
“Criminals are going to get guns. There is no question about that,” said Geagan, who is a sponsor of the Richardsons’ petition drive. “Any steps we can take to help that not to happen, and to say we have made a valiant effort, that is the right thing to do.”
He said the Maine referendum proposal has nothing to do with the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which protects the right of Americans to keep and bear arms.
“It’s not to say that the good people can’t have them anymore,” the Bucksport police chief said. “It’s the ones who shouldn’t get them, the ones who slip through the loopholes, that won’t be able to get them anymore.”
Geagan said he’ll be watching Thursday when Obama discusses his gun control plans, and expects it to be a hot topic the next day.
“That will be an interesting conversation at the lunch counter, believe me,” the police chief said.
