HELENA – Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen led a 25-state coalition asking the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) to overturn Maine’s unconstitutional waiting-period law after a firearm purchase.

The amicus brief was filed Monday in Andrea Beckwith v. Aaron Frey, Attorney General of Maine. Earlier this year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit reversed a lower court’s decision and wrongly upheld the state’s unconstitutional waiting-period law that went into effect in 2024, which requires gun buyers to wait 72 hours before taking possession of a firearm after purchase.

Attorney General Knudsen is asking SCOTUS to reverse the First Circuit’s flawed decision as Maine’s “cooling off” period infringes on Americans’ right to keep and bear arms by putting a limitation or qualification on the Second Amendment and fails the Bruen inquiry.

“The First Circuit’s misinterpretation of the Second Amendment—effectively creating ‘a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees,’ threatens the liberty of citizens in every State,” Attorney General Knudsen wrote.

Maine’s “cooling-off” law qualifies a “limitation or qualification” on the Second Amendment. If a law-abiding citizen buys a firearm on Monday and passes the required background check the same day, that person would still be unable to exercise the right to keep arms for multiple days. Similarly, “cooling-off” requirements for citizens in the context of the First Amendment would be scrutinized in court.

The First Circuit created a circuit split by reversing the district court’s decision on the “cooling-off” period. The Tenth Circuit recognized this commonsense analogy between the First and Second Amendments when analyzing what qualifies as a restriction of the right to keep and bear arms, and it held New Mexico’s materially similar “cooling-off” law as unconstitutional. As a result, New Mexicans can exercise their Second Amendment right, while Mainers may not.

The U.S. Supreme Court made clear in its ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, that courts must determine whether the Second Amendment’s plain text and historical understanding cover an individual’s conduct. Maine’s waiting-period law fails Bruen’s inquiry because Maine failed to produce any evidence of historical waiting-period laws during the country’s Founding or Reconstruction era.

Maine countered that the court should take a more nuanced approach to viewing its waiting-period law due to unprecedented societal concerns involving dramatic technological changes. It argues that the waiting-period law addresses a problem that did not exist at the founding— “the impulsive use of firearms to commit homicides and suicides.” But human impulsivity is not a new societal problem, and Maine fails to point to any rapid advancements in gun technology that warrant Bruen’s “more nuanced approach.”

But even if that “more nuanced approach” were appropriate, Maine’s historical evidence—licensing and intoxication laws—is not “relevantly similar” to its waiting-period law because those laws include conditions that a person could satisfy to avoid the law’s burden, while the waiting-period law applies whether or not a person is dangerous.

“This case presents an analogous issue for “the right of law-abiding, responsible citizens” to keep and bear arms,” Attorney General Knudsen wrote.

Attorneys general from Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Wyoming, and the Arizona Legislature also joined the brief led by Attorney General Knudsen.

Attorney General Knudsen led a coalition last year asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit Court to affirm the district court’s decision halting Maine’s unconstitutional waiting-period law.