Beckwith v. Frey: First Circuit Says Second Amendment Does Not Protect Gun Purchases

The First Circuit has revived Maine’s 72-hour gun waiting period in Beckwith v. Frey, using a rationale that claims Americans may have a right to keep and bear arms, but not necessarily a right to buy them.

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Judge Knocks Down ATF’s Engaged in the Business Rule, iStock-1326757134

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.

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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.