Plan aims to curb gun flow

BANGOR – The Maine U.S. Attorney’s Office will launch a program this fall designed to curb the flow of guns to other states by educating Maine gun owners on how to avoid inadvertently selling their weapons to out-of-state buyers.

The project was spurred by the large number of guns recovered from crime scenes in Boston that were traced to Maine, Paula Silsby, Maine’s U.S. attorney, said Tuesday.

She called the project a “sellers’ awareness program.”

“In some instances,” Silsby said, “people in Maine are selling their guns perfectly legally. They are asking for proof of identification, such as a Maine driver’s license.

“Then, it turns out that the person buying the gun has a false ID and is not entitled to buy a gun in Maine.

“The seller has done nothing wrong,” she said, “but later is contacted by law enforcement officials because the gun was found at a crime scene or in the hands of a felon. The seller gets caught up in the legal process as a witness.”

Silsby emphasized that most Maine residents don’t want their guns to be used in a crime or to wind up in the hands of a criminal

Guns are less likely to wind up at crimes scenes in Boston or Portland or Bangor if they are sold by a licensed dealer, who is required to conduct a criminal background check and have buyers answer a series of questions, she said.

Potential buyers with a criminal history or who lie in answering the questions face federal charges.

“There is an inherent risk in selling a gun to a stranger,” Silsby warned.

The homegrown project will be funded through Project Safe Neighborhood, a U.S. Department of Justice program to stem gun violence throughout the country, according to Silsby.