Maine Democrat Senate candidate Graham Platner, who's vying for the party's nomination and hoping to challenge incumbent Republican Susan Collins next year, has the backing of gun control activist David Hogg's Leaders We Deserve PAC, even after a string of stories about Platner's "problematic social media posts, a tattoo closely resembling a Nazi symbol and a sudden turnover in campaign staffers," as Maine's PBS affiliate recently put it.
Platner has also been trying to portray himself as a moderate on Second Amendment issues. Among those "problematic" social media posts were a string of comments on Reddit about lefties arming themselves, and Platner was at one time a vocal proponent of owning AR-15s as a check on "fascism."
Platner, though, was a vocal proponent of the "red flag" law adopted by Maine voters earlier this month, and in a recent interview with NewsCenterMaine, the Democrat kept an open mind about all kinds of gun control measures.
Platner offered tepid support for another law that also followed from the 2023 mass shooting in Lewiston, a three-day waiting period for gun buyers, after they pass an instant federal background check, to take possession of a new gun. That law is now on hold while it is tied up in court proceedings.
“As a firearms owner and someone who's bought a lot of guns in the state of Maine, I do think the three-day waiting period is a bit excessive. That being said, it was passed by this legislature. It was passed by people representing the people of Maine, and I certainly don't have a problem with it if the people of Maine want to go that route,” Platner said in the interview.
So Platner doesn't see any constitutional issue whatsoever with a three-day waiting period? What about a week-long wait? Two weeks? 30 days? Is there any point at which Platner would agree that a waiting period infringes on our right to keep and bear arms?
Unlike Congressman Jared Golden, who announced after the Lewiston tragedy was carried out with a semi-automatic rifle, that he would support an assault weapons ban, Platner would not, he said, because they tend to focus more “on aesthetics than function.”
“I am currently not for an assault weapons ban, certainly in the form that they have been put forward. As someone who has spent a lifetime around firearms, a lifetime, frankly, around automatic weapons when I was in the Marine Corps, in the Army, and semi-automatic weapons in the years afterwards as a firearms instructor and working for the State Department, I often see some of these bans as being written with language that is not really indicative of how these guns work. I very much would like to see language in legislation that reflects how firearms function and would maybe get us the outcomes we want,” Platner said. “So, I am not opposed down the road to some kind of legislation that's going to restrict access to certain kinds of firearms, but I do want to make sure that that is being written with, frankly, reality and the way that these firearms work.”
So Platner's open to the idea of a gun ban, but it would depend on the language. Of course, as senator, Platner would be in a position to craft a bill that does exactly what he wants, and since he's not opposed to a gun ban in theory I'd say that makes him a supporter of semi-auto bans.
In fact, I suspect that Platner's being intentionally obtuse here, knowing that the reporter questioning him isn't likely to have a deep knowledge base on gun issues. Maine Senator Angus King has already proposed an "assault weapons" ban that isn't feature-based or focused on aesthetics. The Gas-Operated Semi-Automatic Firearm Exclusion (GOSAFE) Act would ban all gas-operated centerfire semi-automatic rifles regardless of feature, and that sounds like precisely what Platner wants to see.
Unfortunately, if he was counting on his inquisitor to be clueless, I think he got his wish. There was no followup about supporting King's GOSAFE Act, though hopefully another reporter will ask him directly if he supports that bill in the near future.
Again, Platner's hoping to portray himself as a moderately pro-2A Democrat, but beyond his years-old Reddit posts there's not much evidence of that... and plenty to suggest that Platner's views are in alignment with rabid anti-gunners like David Hogg.
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