According to the Maine Bureau of Corporations, Elections & Commissions: “Referendum Elections are held to provide Maine’s citizens an opportunity to vote on…Direct Initiatives of Legislation (i.e. Citizen Initiatives)…”.
So why is a mechanism designed to provide Maine citizens a way to influence directly laws in their state again being used by an outside group to impose a national agenda?
It has only been two years since the Humane Society of the United States, based in Washington D.C., pushed an initiative in our state in effort to advance their own agenda. That divisive issue cost Maine citizens a lot of time, money and effort to retain control over our wildlife management.
Once again Mainers are being forced to defend themselves from an outside group that wants to push its misguided gun control agenda on us though our Citizens initiative process.
Question 3 seeks to eliminate gun transfers between unlicensed persons by imposing background checks and criminal penalties. If your friend wanted to borrow your shotgun to go hunting you would both have to go to a dealer, submit to a background check and pay a fee. When the gun is returned, back you both go, pay another fee and submit to a check to get your own gun back. The same background check you needed to buy the gun in the first place.
These transaction costs in both time and money are a restriction on your property and your liberty.
Do background checks work? No. Nationwide, of the 2.4 million people who were initially denied from buying a gun, 96% were falsely blocked. In 2010, 76,000 denials led to 49 prosecutions. Do you think criminals buy guns that require background check?
What we really need is a way to stop out-of-state groups from using our Maine process to promote their agendas.
