25 States File Amicus Brief Urging Supreme Court Review of Maine 72-Hour Gun Wait

The coalition brief contends that the waiting period restricts the right to keep and bear arms by delaying possession for cleared buyers. It cites the 2022 Bruen decision requiring historical tradition analysis rather than interest balancing, and notes exemptions for law enforcement and certain transfers that undermine the law's uniform application. The First Circuit upheld the law by classifying purchase delays as outside the Amendment's plain text, a holding the states argue creates an evasion path for future restrictions. Maine's statute took effect August 9 2024 after the Lewiston shooting and survived an initial district court injunction when the First Circuit reversed in April 2025. The Tenth Circuit reached the opposite result on New Mexico's seven-day wait, finding acquisition protected and the delay likely unconstitutional. This split supplies the primary ground for Supreme Court intervention. The states' filing records both the asserted gain of uniform national scrutiny on post-acquisition delays and the cost of exposing similar state measures to renewed litigation. Primary documents include the coalition brief, the August 25 cert petition, and the First Circuit's April 3 opinion treating purchase rules as presumptively valid licensing analogs.