House OKs bill barring gun suits

AUGUSTA — In an effort to head off “frivolous lawsuits” inspired by tragedies like the Colorado school shootings, the House Tuesday passed a bill to bar municipalities from suing gun manufacturers for damages. The vote was 107-42.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Royce W. Perkins, R-Penobscot, will now head to the Senate for a vote.

Perkins said he expects lawsuits to be filed as a form of “back door gun control” after the Colorado shootings that left 15 dead. He said the National Rifle Association, which has received a “bad rap” from the school shootings, had nothing to do with his bill. Perkins said he was a life member of the gun lobby organization, “which has become a scapegoat after doing a lot of good.”

A gun is a “useful product, a good tool, not harmful,” in the right hands, Perkins told the House. He said by definition, any damages suit against a gun manufacturer would be frivolous. He said the bill was aimed only at municipalities, which are “creatures of the state,” to avoid any infringement on individual rights.

After being accused of being a “lap dog for the NRA,” Rep. Robert A. Daigle, R-Arundel, described himself “more of an alert guard dog” who supported the bill to head off “frivolous” lawsuits.

Firearms manufacturers should not be liable for the misuse of their products, said Rep. Harold A. Clough, R-Scarborough.

The bill is a jobs issue, according to Rep. Stephen S. Stanley of Medway, who supported the bill since more than 100 jobs are supplied by gun manufacturers within a 60-mile radius of his house.

“Leave guns alone. Go after the people who misuse them,” said Rep. Gary J. Wheeler, D-Eliot. He said the effort to kill the bill was inspired by anti-gun activists who want to drain weapons manufacturers.

The Legislature set a precedent for the Perkins bill when it passed legislation to protect ski areas from certain lawsuits, said Rep. Christopher P. O’Neil, D-Saco.

The outgunned opposition to the bill focused on local control and the power of town meetings.

Rep Benjamin L. Rines, D-Wiscasset, said the bill was the first effort to prohibit municipal rights and was “a direct attack” on the town meeting process, with its premise that voters cannot make their own decisions. He opposed any “special rights” for gun manufacturers. If the Perkins bill passes, “Who will be next?” he asked.

After cleaning her father’s ducks for decades, Rep. Elizabeth Townsend, D-Portland, said she was neither anti-gun nor anti-hunting, but she described the Perkins bill as “a solution in search of a problem,” since no Maine community had sued a gun manufacturer. She noted the “poor timing” of the bill, coming just a few weeks after the school shooting.

Rep. Thomas Bull, D-Freeport, questioned the need to protect the nation’s gun manufacturers.