Montana Leads 28-State Legal Challenge to Maine’s 72-Hour Gun Waiting Period

Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen is heading a 28-state coalition in support of a legal challenge to Maine’s 72-hour gun waiting period law, arguing the requirement violates Second Amendment protections established by the Supreme Court’s landmark Bruen decision.

The coalition filed an amicus brief in the case of Beckwith v. Frey, asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit to uphold a district court’s decision that halted Maine’s waiting period law, which took effect in 2024.

Constitutional Challenge Based on Bruen Standard

The legal challenge centers on the Supreme Court’s ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, which established that courts must determine whether the Second Amendment’s plain text and historical understanding cover an individual’s conduct.

In the brief, Attorney General Knudsen argues that Maine’s waiting period law fails this constitutional test because the state “failed to produce any evidence of historical waiting-period laws during the country’s Founding or Reconstruction era.”

“Maine failed to carry its burden to show that its waiting-period law is ‘part of the historical tradition that delimits the outer bounds of the right to keep and bear arms,'” Knudsen wrote in the brief.

The district court found that the right to acquire firearms is covered by the Second Amendment’s plain text and that Maine’s proposed historical analogues—licensing and intoxication laws—did not meet the Bruen standard’s requirements. The court determined that the plaintiff “was likely to succeed on the merits of her Second Amendment claim because the waiting-period law ’employs no standard at all to justify disarming individuals.'”

Maine’s Defense and Coalition Response

Maine defended its law by arguing for a “more nuanced approach” due to what it characterized as unprecedented societal concerns involving dramatic technological changes. The state contended that the waiting period addresses “the impulsive use of firearms to commit homicides and suicides”—a problem it claims did not exist at the founding.

However, the coalition counters that human impulsivity is not a new societal problem, and Maine fails to identify any rapid advancements in gun technology that would warrant departing from the Bruen standard.

“Maine argues that its waiting-period law addresses a problem that did not exist at the Founding—’the impulsive use of firearms to commit homicides and suicides,'” the brief states. “But human impulsivity is not a new problem, nor would it have been ‘unheard of or unimaginable at the Founding’ for people to impulsively purchase firearms to harm others or themselves.”

Rejection of Historical Analogues

The coalition systematically dismantles Maine’s proposed historical analogues in the brief. On intoxication laws, the states argue that “unlike Maine’s waiting-period law, these laws include conditions or qualifications that a person can satisfy, ‘not an absolute prohibition uninformed by any individualized consideration.'”

Regarding licensing laws, the brief notes that while they may impose delays, “the similarity between licensing laws and Maine’s waiting-period law only holds up for initial purchases. For all future purchases, Maine’s waiting-period law still requires a 72-hour waiting period but license holders do not have to resubmit applications to buy legal firearms.”

The coalition also criticizes Maine’s reliance on three district court decisions from Colorado, Vermont, and New Mexico, calling them “poorly reasoned” and noting they “both rely on the same misguided analogues as Maine.”

Bruen’s Anti-Balancing Framework

A significant portion of the brief addresses what the coalition sees as an attempt to resurrect pre-Bruen interest balancing. The states argue that Maine’s supporters are asking courts to “return to the state of play that Bruen rejected.”

“Bruen’s inquiry is instead limited to whether the Second Amendment covers Beckwith’s right to acquire firearms (it does) and, if so, whether Maine’s waiting-period law is consistent with our Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulations (it isn’t),” the brief states.

The coalition emphasizes that “the American people already weighed ‘the costs and benefits of firearms restrictions’ in the Second Amendment,” and that balance “demands [the Court’s] unqualified deference.”

Timing and Historical Evidence

The brief makes clear that evidence from the Founding era carries the most weight in constitutional analysis. “Constitutional rights are enshrined with the scope they were understood to have when the people adopted them,” the coalition argues, quoting the Supreme Court’s Heller decision.

Maine conceded in its brief that “there are no early examples of waiting period laws,” which the coalition argues is dispositive. The brief notes that “Maine’s failure to produce any evidence of similar waiting-period laws from the Founding era strongly suggests no such tradition existed.”

Broad State Support

The coalition represents a significant cross-section of states, with attorneys general from Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming joining Montana’s brief. The Arizona Legislature also joined the coalition.

The case represents a major test of how broadly the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision will be applied to state gun regulations beyond carry permits, potentially affecting waiting period laws in other states. As the brief concludes, “This Court should affirm the district court’s order.”