The Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to Maine’s three-day firearm waiting period, leaving the restriction in force while the Second Amendment fight returns to trial court.
The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to take up a petition against Maine’s 72-hour waiting period for firearm purchases, Center Square reported, leaving an April appeals-court ruling in place and the delay rule still binding on lawful buyers.
That April decision by the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston lifted a preliminary injunction that had blocked enforcement. The appeals court said the requirement is likely constitutional. The high court’s pass does not settle the merits. The case now heads back to the U.S. District Court in Maine for further proceedings.
Gun-rights groups had asked the justices to step in after Democratic lawmakers in Augusta stacked the three-day delay onto a broader gun-control package. Retailers and sportsmen argued the wait burdens ordinary purchasers who pose no threat and collides with the Second Amendment and the nation’s history of firearm regulation.
The National Rifle Association, the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine, and several Maine firearm retailers pressed the petition. Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey had defended the law after appealing a district-court block. For now, every legal buyer in the state still faces the same three-day hold.
Democratic majorities moved the waiting-period language after the Oct. 25, 2023, shootings in Lewiston. An Army reservist opened fire at a bowling alley and a bar, killing 13 people and injuring 18 others. Lawmakers framed the delay as a response to that crime.
Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, allowed the 72-hour rule to become law without her signature. She said she was “conflicted” after weighing both sides of the gun-control debate. Conflicted or not, the restriction took effect and now survives another round at the high court.
Court fights over firearms and executive power have become a steady national pattern, including fights that surface when Democrats eye Supreme Court overhaul talk after rulings they dislike. Maine’s waiting-period case fits the same tension between state gun rules and constitutional limits.
In February, U.S. District Judge Lance Walker issued a temporary injunction blocking the law. He sided with the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine and several gun sellers who said the statute violates the Second Amendment.
Walker called the waiting period “indiscriminate” because it hits every firearm purchaser, threat or not. He also said the plaintiffs were “likely to succeed” on the merits. That early read did not last at the next level.
Frey appealed. In April the First Circuit reversed course on the injunction and kept the delay in force while the case continued. The Supreme Court’s later refusal to hear the appeal leaves that appeals-court posture undisturbed for now.
Separate high-court fights have also drawn sharp partisan reactions, from voting rules to enforcement power, as when the Supreme Court cleared a path on a mail-voting order that Democratic attorneys general vowed to resist. Maine’s petition got no such merits hearing.
Nacole Palmer, executive director of the Maine Gun Safety Coalition, welcomed the justices’ decision not to intervene and pointed to state public-safety reporting.
"We know from reporting from the Department of Public Safety that Maine’s 72-hour waiting period has already worked to save lives from preventable gun deaths in our state. Despite the gun lobby’s best efforts, our waiting period law will continue to save lives and we expect and hope that it will continue to be upheld."
Larry Keane, senior vice president for government affairs at the National Shooting Sports Foundation, rejected any claim that the Supreme Court had upheld the statute on the merits. He told WVOM’s “Voice of Maine” talk show the litigation continues.
"The case is not over. The only thing the Supreme Court decided was not to hear the appeal at this point in time. They did not make any decisions about the merits of the case. So it goes on."
Keane vowed to keep pushing to overturn the waiting period. That posture matches the petitioners’ core argument: a blanket delay treats the law-abiding buyer the same as a person who may never pass a background check, and it does so without the historical grounding the Supreme Court’s recent Second Amendment cases demand.
National fights over the Court’s size and power keep pace with these gun cases. Readers have already seen Clyburn urge Congress to add four justices and break with long practice when outcomes frustrate the left. A quiet denial in a Maine firearms case is a different tool, but the pressure campaign around the Court is the same.
A denial of review is not a ruling that Maine’s statute is constitutional. It is a refusal to hear the appeal at this stage. The First Circuit’s “likely constitutional” finding controls the injunction question for now. Judge Walker’s earlier warning that the rule is indiscriminate remains part of the trial-court record the parties will revisit.
That distinction matters for every lawful Maine resident who wants a firearm for home defense, hunting, or sport and must wait three days after the purchase paperwork clears. The delay does not target prohibited persons alone. It parks the transfer for everyone.
Other recent orders have shown how quickly the justices can clear discrete executive actions, including when the Supreme Court let Trump DHS move on voter-roll scrubbing of illegal immigrants. In the Maine case, the Court simply stepped aside and left the lower-court track running.
The practical result is immediate. The 72-hour clock still runs on Maine gun sales. The NRA, the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine, and the retailer plaintiffs still have a live challenge in district court. Frey still defends a statute born in the political aftermath of Lewiston and signed into effect by a governor who would not put her name on it.
Palmer’s coalition will keep calling the wait a lifesaver. Keane’s industry group will keep calling the high court’s silence a non-decision. Both sides are preparing for the next round in Portland’s federal courthouse, not a final word from Washington.
Democratic lawmakers wrote a one-size-fits-all delay, a federal judge flagged it as indiscriminate, an appeals court kept it alive, and the Supreme Court declined to referee. Law-abiding buyers in Maine are the ones left waiting.