After reading the First Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling in Beckwith v. Frey, I had a pleasant vision of Circuit Judges Lara E. Montecalvo, Seth R. Aframe, and Senior Judge Ojetta Rogeriee Thompson being summoned to a come-to-Jesus meeting with James Madison, the fourth President of the United States, one of the Founding Fathers, and the Father of the Constitution.
Beckwith v. Frey challenges the 72-hour waiting period. The law was passed in 2024 as part of a knee-jerk response to the 2023 mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine.
The plaintiffs filed the lawsuit in November 2024, claiming the new law was a violation of the Second Amendment as well as Supreme Court rulings in District of Columbia v. Heller and New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.*
The claim was Maine’s law violated the Second Amendment by delaying the exercise of the right to keep and bear arms. In addition, the law failed the Bruen test because there were no analogous statutes in either the Founding or Reconstruction Eras.
The U.S. District Court agreed. Chief U.S. District Judge E. Lance Walker granted a preliminary injunction in February 2025.
Unfortunately, the First Circuit appellate court, much like its counterparts in the Second Circuit, Fourth Circuit, Seventh Circuit, and Ninth Circuit, has a long history of twisting (or completely ignoring) the Constitution, Supreme Court jurisprudence, and rational thought when it comes to gun control.
On April 6 of this year, Judges Aframe, Montecalvo, and Thompson reversed the lower court’s decision, lifted the injunction, and ruled Americans do have a protected right to possess weapons and a right to carry them, but they don’t have a right to buy them because that wasn’t included in the amendment.
This holding would be the topic of the meeting I mentioned in the first paragraph.
Madison would want to know if all Americans of the 21st Century had been infected with some malady that degraded their IQs, leaving them the mental equivalents of spinach. Or, Madison might wonder, did it impact only certain factions in the judiciary?
Like all the amendments in the Bill of Rights, the Second Amendment identifies certain preexisting rights. The Founders never imagined they might need to include step-by-step instructions to exercise them.
Should they have included a reminder to inhale before exercising the freedom of speech?
Like the Second Amendment, the First Amendment doesn’t include any specific “right to buy” clauses. However, in 1983, the Supreme Court struck down a special Minnesota tax on large purchases of printing ink. The court said the tax could have an unconstitutional impact on freedom of the press. The case was Minnesota Star Tribune Co. v. Commissioner.
The weasel-wording used by the appellate panel isn’t new. In 2024, Larry Keane, the NSSF’s senior vice president and general counsel, wrote about the tactic, which has been used to uphold waiting periods and limits on the frequency of gun purchases.
The Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791. At that time, it’s estimated there were perhaps 2,000 gunsmiths and blacksmiths who made guns in the U.S.
Citizens, with their brand-new right to keep and bear arms, made up a steady market.
It’s a tribute to the business acumen of those entrepreneurs and consumers that they made the inventory-to-possession connection with no trouble at all.
Imagine that.
*For more detailed information about the case, check out the NRA-ILA amicus brief.
DOJ Warns Virginia It Will Sue Over AR-15 Ban, Gun Control Bills
First Circuit Says Second Amendment Does Not Protect Buying Guns in Beckwith v. Frey
About Bill Cawthon
Bill Cawthon first became a gun owner 55 years ago. He has been an active advocate for Americans’ civil liberties for more than a decade. He is the information director for the Second Amendment Society of Texas.
Seems to me that such an infringement on purchasing would stimulate an increase in making them at home — without serial numbers.
Citizens, with their brand-new right to keep and bear arms, made up a steady market.
brand new recognition” of their existing right to keep and bear arms,…
Stop using the gunbanners lexicon. The right existed and was exercised BEFORE the Constitution “said it out loud” ~ Colonists already understood it.
Where do these far leftist judges get their orders from? Everytown and Brady and China? How long has each been in office?
These judges don’t belong on the bench, they belong in a prison cell !
This is multi-level stupidity. First, if we have a right to arms, but no right to purchase them, that only leaves the possibility of exercising the right if we have a right to make them ourselves. But that right is also under assault. Once again, anti-gun forces make it clear that they believe the 2nd Amendment protects nothing. Second, the authors of the Bill of Rights 1.) didn’t particularize every individual right, individual rights being too numerous to list; and 2.) they wrote the Ninth Amendment as a catch-all for any unenumerated personal rights, for the very purpose of defusing claims… Read more »
So the ink in freedom of the press is constitutional, what of, The paper?
We no longer mine, or smelt lead in this country. Will they come for brass and copper next?
Covid tried, to prevent assembly for religion.
Tyranny loss of freedom. Is the death of 1000 cuts.
The Second Amendment covers ALL things gun-related. Building, making, buying, fixing, repairing, possessing, carrying, using.
I have always wondered why, Minnesota Star Tribune Co. vs. Commissioner,
Has not been used to strike down the NFA.
Seems like a no brainer to me.
Hahahaha! What imbeciles! No right to buy a gun? WTF kind of drugs are these hacks in black on? Of course we have a right to purchase firearms, immediately, with no government approval, knowledge, registration, permission slips, taxes, or delays. A three day delay could easily be altered to three months, or years. If a delay is considered acceptable by these dolts on the bench, the duration of the delay is immaterial. Americans will continue to buy and build firearms, legally under the Constitution,no matter what politicians or judges proclaim.