Our colleagues from Maine Citizens Against Handgun Violence send this editorial from the Bangor, ME Daily News that offers yet another look at how the selfish policies of the NRA are constantly trumping the needs of American citizens to stay safe.

A bill came before the Maine Legislature this session (LD 1938, An Act to Protect Victims of Domestic Violence) that would have required that a person who obtained a protection from abuse order be informed if her (or his) abuser tries to purchase a gun from a licensed dealer (which is illegal anyway). The local law enforcement office in which the endangered person lives would also be informed.

Simple enough: It gives the threatened person further warning and more time to protect herself. The Criminal Justice Committee of our state agreed - unanimously - that the bill was a basic need and gave it an "ought to pass."

A roster of VIPs spoke for the bill at the hearing: Public Safety Commissioner Mike Cantara and Maine Attorney General Steve Rowe both gave it a strong thumbs-up. Other proponents included the Maine Coalition to End Domestic Violence, the Maine Chiefs of Police Association and the Maine Sheriffs Association.

No one spoke against it!

So let's see, we got the Criminal Justice Committee in support of this bill. We've got every imaginable group of police officers and attorneys for it. And we've got victims of violence supported by this legislation, in a way that doesn't infringe upon the "rights" of "law-abiding gun owners." This sounds like the perfect legislation-- designed to create a solid prevention against something that should never happen.

But that's right before the NRA got involved.

Enter the National Rifle Association, ominously out of sight throughout the hearings and readings. Suddenly they wanted to add some last-minute amendments to the bill, amendments that had nothing to do with the content of the bill, amendments that had received no public hearings, that thus avoided the usual lengthy work sessions that legislation is required to go through.

They had picked up their amendments from bills recently passed in Pennsylvania, bills that were the result of 10 years of negotiations, debates and discussions between and among that state's domestic violence groups, sportsmen's groups, and, yes, the NRA. Some of the issues had been debated for three years, yet the NRA had the chutzpah to saddle Maine's little LD 1938 with a load of undiscussed and irrelevant stuff at the last minute.

Guess what? It worked! Enough easily manipulated legislators suddenly lined up with the NRA and defeated LD 1938.

Winners: the NRA. Losers: women and girls in danger of their lives from abusive partners.

Politics has some dirty players, but there is no dirtier than the National Rifle Association. When they pass concealed weapons bills, they make "concessions" that they overturn the very next legislative period. When everyone in a state is against a bill they want passed, they start writing checks and making threats until they get legislators on their side. And when a bill like this, a bill that would have legitimately prevented violence against victims of domestic abuse, is about to pass, they pull out all the stops to make sure it doesn't.

Our legislators are certainly not listening to their constituents. Looks like it's got to come from the grass roots, citizens, to stop the NRA from telling our legislators just when to jump.

So far, the legislators' response is usually, "How high?"

Last we checked, this was America-- a country where elected officials were supposed to represent those who voted them into office. So why does it seem like the only voices represented in our country's highest legislatures are the most extreme (and yet well-funded by an industry of death) lobbies around? We're past due for stronger gun legislation in this country-- our citizens know it, our police know it, and our lawmakers should know it as well. Thanks to the NRA, they're acting as if they don't.