Important - LD222, if passed, will further complicate the CCW permit process

[PC1]

LD222 is a bill that would centralize CCW permits with the Chief of State Police.

This misguided bill title is titled: "An Act Designating the Chief of the State Police as the Only Issuing Authority of a Permit To Carry a Concealed Handgun"

It would also raise the cost of CCW application, taking even more money from law-abiding citizens. Possibly worst of all, it would establish a dangerous precedent-setting centralized database operated by the Maine State Police whose purposes would no doubt be expanded for other gun rights-limiting efforts. Once you're in a database, your medical history and other details become may become accessible to other government agencies (e.g., the NSA). Also, it's almost impossible to get mistaken or contested information removed, even if the law pretends to provide for such things. LD222 doesn't provide for a process to correct database errors. As an example, try to get your credit rating repaired if errors show up. Remember - this small law is actually just the tip of a *very* large iceberg, no doubt supported by the out-of-state Bloomberg anti-firearms machine/fortune as well as other anti-gun rights sponsors.

Also see the *minority report* for this bill, summarized and linked at the web page below. The minority (i.e., non-Democrats) advocates for very different CCW law modifications, of course.

Gun Owners of Maine - News

The full text of LD222 as a PDF file is available here:

LD 222, HP 183, Text and Status, 126th Legislature, Second Regular Session

The bill's text as well as bill tracking, and other info are provided here:

HP0183, LD 222, item 1, An Act Designating the Chief of the State Police as the Only Issuing Authority of a Permit To Carry a Concealed Handgun

If we can once again stop LD222, we can at least maintain our ***locally administered*** right to keep and bear arms in Maine. Maine is composed of many unique small towns and counties and the authority to issue CCW permits is best left with *local* authorities who know us and our communities. We do not need or want this process to be centralized in Augusta and operated anonymously by the State Police. Even a severely firearms-restrictive state like New York has their CCW process administered locally, not in their state capitol by their state police! I have to wonder if the State Police are in effect using this bill to politically expand their budget and workforce?

Currently, very few CCW permit applications are rejected. Since almost no CCW permit holders are convicted of gun-related crimes, LD222 would accomplish almost nothing. The Democrats are once again wasting the taxpayer's money to fix imaginary problems that realistically don't significantly exist in Maine, with the primary goal to expand gun control by any possible means. We should instead abolish our essentially pointless, costly CCW laws, as our freedom-loving neighbor state of New Hampshire recently did. We should not let Maine become a de facto suburb of Massachusetts!

Please contact your state legislator now and express your opposition to LD222. Information on how to contact your representative is provided below:

Maine House of Representatives: Find Your Representative by Town

 

[207tee]

I don't see anything "new" in the law, just that all permits would be issued by the State police. Most permits are already issued by the state police, I believe. Some cities and towns issue their own, and most are printed on paper without a picture of the permit holder. The state police issue a plastic card with a picture, like a drivers license. (same size as well) I would think having one issuing authority would level the playing field, as far as fairness and equality.
I would much rather see the permit eliminated entirely, and constitutional carry accepted. It should be treated as the God given right that it is, instead of having to ask permission from anybody. I mean, the criminals carry without a permit anyway, so we are only investigating the law abiding citizen.

 

[SR9]

The big question is: Is the State Chief of Police pro-gun or anti- gun? Pro CCW or anti-CCW Permit?

 

[PC1]

I worry about the following:

1. The State Police will build a secret database of forbidden people - the list of things they are to investigate and put into their database is much broader than merely asking the Dix mental institution for a list of people who have been somehow committed. It's basically everything in the long questions list in the CCW application plus a requirement that the State Police verify that the applicant's military records are up to the committee's undefined standards.

2. There are no specified mechanisms to find out what is in your own database records or how it got there, and there is no provision to appeal it or to insert your own rebuttal. Since the State Police offices are located in Augusta, to appear in person with your lawyer(s) and your own experts (e.g., a doctor in the case of a medical issue), would cost a fortune. Based on the bill, there are no appeals processes, anyway... I'm sure the anti-gun legislators know this since they included appeals procedures in a bill they tried to force on us last year. Similarly, there are no rules or processes for putting people in or taking people out of their secret forbidden persons database.

I personally believe this thinly disguised bill is intended to eliminate CCW in Maine even though we've not had any significant issues with the current system. Our CCW permits would be up to a completely inaccessible and geographically remote State Police bureaucracy.

Regardless, the bill is now passed by the committee and it's safe to assume that the Democrat-controlled legislature will quickly pass the thing. I assume the the Governor will then veto it, with the only question being "will the legislature override his veto?".

I just hope they don't reintroduce representative Janice Cooper's bill from last year that would require formal firearms training just to buy ammo! It easily passed the Democrat legislature but they couldn't overcome the Governor's wise veto - he correctly pointed out that it would pointlessly burden honest citizens with no effect on crime.

 

[mrmc357]

I recently received my non-resident permit. It took 4 months processing. I know their investigations are backed up. Thus, they will either have to hire alot more personnel at the State Police level or it will be a long delay.

 

[TrapperBob]

At least four states I can think of off hand have their CCW permits administered at the state level without problems. Virginia State Police are the issuing authority for VA non-resident permits, Arizona Department of Public Safety issues theirs, Florida Department of Agriculture in Florida, South Carolina State Law Enforcement Department in SC. So I think having a central state issuing authority is not necessarily a problem, as long as the state is a Shall Issue state. I do think that having a single issuing authority can greatly increase the time for an application to be approved.

 

[PC1]

One of the many problems with this hopefully dead bill (as best I can follow) is that it had no defined appeals processes, and no way to learn what the State Police unit put into their database(s) for yourself as an applicant. Since the CCW law form requires information about many tens of items ranging from military-related records to involvement with psychiatric treatment, and many other things, I don't personally see how this law as written would be anything less than a potential means for arbitrarily depriving us from access to concealed carry. In other words, this law may not be at all what it seems. "Shall Issue" might quickly become "Lots of Luck", at the discretion of the special State Police CCW Unit.

Once they decide by whatever standards they invent that you're unsuitable to have a CCW permit, the next step may well be a gun-confiscating visit by a "special police unit" as they do in California.

Since there are few if any crimes in Maine by CCW permit holders, I believe the Governor is correct in his belief that we really don't need a permit system at all, and that there is no need to enact laws and spend money for centralizing the approval process. The neighboring state of New Hampshire doesn't require a CCW permit at all and does fine, and I'd love to see Maine follow their example.

----------------

I have come to really worry that if our current Governor is not re-elected, we'll quickly be flooded with all sorts of Bloomberg-sponsored gun-unfriendly laws - the Democrat majority has repeatedly passed such laws in recent years, and only the Governor's veto has saved us from the gun-haters and gun-grabbers. Will Maine's gun laws look like New York/California/New Jersey/etc soon? We need to rebuild the Democrat legislature into being much more Republican-oriented, instead of becoming just a suburb of Massachusetts.

Just my two cents, of course - no disrespect intended to anyone's politics or opinions.