Legal/Law/Criminal Justice and Reform

Pro-2A Groups Ask Supreme Court To Shoot Down Waiting Periods

Joe Ravi/Wikimedia Commons

Two pro-Second Amendment groups asked the Supreme Court Tuesday to hear a case involving a waiting period to purchase a firearm.

The National Rifle Association (NRA) and Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) asked the high court to hear Beckwith v. Frey, a case challenging the constitutionality of Maine’s three-day waiting period on firearms purchases. In the brief, SAF Director of Legal Research and Education Konstadinos Moros accused the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit of “gamesmanship.”

“Some lower courts have rationalized this defiance by being draconian in their application of the Second Amendment’s plain text,” Moros wrote in the brief. “To those courts, no conduct is protected by the plain text of the Second Amendment unless it literally consists of keeping or bearing arms. That is exactly what happened in this case, in which the First Circuit ruled that ‘laws regulating the purchase or acquisition of firearms do not target conduct covered by the Second Amendment’s ‘plain text.’’”

After United States District Judge Lance E. Walker of the District of Maine, a Trump appointee, ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit overturned the decision, prompting the plaintiffs to send a petition to the Supreme Court requesting a writ of certiorari.

Maine’s state Legislature enacted the waiting period following an October 2023 mass shooting in Lewiston by an Army reservist with a history of mental health issues. The waiting period took effect in 2024 after Democratic Gov. Janet Mills refused to veto the legislation, instead allowing it to become law without her signature.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit struck down a waiting period on firearms purchases in August 2025 while overruling a decision in favor of New Mexico by Senior United States District Judge James O. Browning, a George W. Bush appointee, creating a “circuit split” on the constitutionality of the provisions. When appellate courts differ on how to approach similar cases or constitutional issues, the Supreme Court is more likely to take the case to resolve the “circuit split.”

Maine faces a Monday deadline to respond to the petition, which is the same day as the Supreme Court’s “long conference,” a lengthy meeting intended for the justices to address as many as 2,000 requests to hear cases, including several touching on Second Amendment issues.