Maine Waiting Period Survives Appeal

Maine's 72-hour waiting period on gun purchases is back in effect after a federal appeals court reversed a lower court ruling that had blocked the law.

State of play: The First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston ruled April 3 that Maine's waiting period law is likely constitutional, vacating a preliminary injunction that U.S. District Judge Lance Walker had granted in February 2025. The case now returns to the district court for a full hearing on the merits.

Catch up quick:

• Maine passed the 72-hour waiting period in 2024, one of several gun laws enacted after the October 2023 Lewiston mass shooting that killed 18 people.
• Judge Walker blocked the law in February 2025, calling it "indiscriminate dispossession" because it applied even to buyers who had already cleared an instant background check.
• A three-judge First Circuit panel disagreed, calling the delay a "modest" burden — not an infringement — on Second Amendment rights.

The legal question: The panel drew a distinction worth understanding. The court didn't say the waiting period is fine because it's popular or politically convenient. It said a brief delay that doesn't permanently block a law-abiding person from acquiring a firearm is a burden on the Second Amendment, not a violation of it. That's the legal line they're drawing.

"The (law) briefly delays acquisitions of firearms from commercial dealers. But it does not prevent a law-abiding and responsible citizen from obtaining and then keeping or bearing a firearm after fulfilling the waiting period requirement." — First Circuit Court of Appeals, April 3, 2025

The judges also noted that Maine's 72-hour window mirrors the maximum time federal law already gives the NICS background check system to return a result. In their view, a state can't impose a longer delay than that and call it modest — but matching the federal window is apparently fair game.

Between the lines: Gun rights groups had genuinely been watching Walker's district court ruling as a vehicle to challenge waiting period laws nationally. About a dozen states have some version of these laws, and most have survived court challenges. Walker's ruling was the exception, not the rule. The First Circuit just put things back on the more typical track.

What Idaho owners should know: Idaho has no waiting period law and no pending legislation to create one. But federal circuit court decisions shape the legal environment everywhere. If waiting period legislation surfaces here — or if this case eventually reaches the Supreme Court — the First Circuit's "burden vs. infringement" framework is the argument you'll be hearing argued both directions.

What to watch: The case goes back to Judge Walker for a full trial on the merits. His preliminary injunction ruling showed he's skeptical of the law. Whether that skepticism survives the First Circuit's constitutional framing — or whether this ends up before the Supreme Court — is the question worth tracking.