Interesting article on the Hiram Maxim Machine Gun Shoot at:
[url]www.bangornews.com/cgi-bin/article.cfm?storynumber=38152[/url]

But what really caught my eye was the last paragraphs:


It looks like the Portland gun grabbers are up to some local mischief.  According to the NRA's web site, Maine's pre-emption law only addresses registration and licensing, so they may be able to get something by like mandatory storage.  You may want to look into this.

I will include the entire article below

[center]Opponent calls off gun-gala protest
By Sharon Kiley Mack, Of the NEWS Staff [/center]

DOVER-FOXCROFT — Cathy Whittenburg of Portland rode 12 hours on a bus a year ago to attend the Million Mom March in Washington, D.C. The civil action transformed her life, and she is now the director of the movement in Maine.
“For more than a year,” she said Thursday evening, “I have been speaking out publicly and at the Legislature. I’ve been sending out press releases and e-mails.”
But it wasn’t until Whittenburg sent out a press release last Monday questioning the wisdom of the Hiram Maxim Machine Gun Shoot to be held this weekend in Dover-Foxcroft that she got her first piece of hate mail.
Laced with obscenities and sent from an untraceable e-mail provider, the message was not a threat against her life, she said, but it was serious enough to have local Million Moms change their plans about protesting in Dover-Foxcroft. The hate mail’s sender is connected with the machine gun event, the e-mail said.
On Friday, the shoot organizer, Barry Sturk, said he abhorred the action taken by the unknown mailer and denied that anyone connected with his organization had sent the message.
Sturk is president of the Hiram Maxim Historical Society of Waterville, which for the past six years has annually sponsored the event. Hiram Maxim was the Sangerville native who invented the modern machine gun in 1883.
“This very severely upsets me,” he said Friday from Dover-Foxcroft, where he already was greeting hundreds of visitors to the three-day shootout. Sturk said that whoever sent the message was acting on his own, not with the authority of the HMHS.
“We have no reason to do this,” he said.
Sturk maintained that the event has been held each summer without incident. “It is an extremely well-run, safe event,” he said.
Whittenburg, however, said the Million Mom protesters decided on Wednesday, after receiving the hate mail, not to visit central Maine.
“We talked about going up there, but frankly, after this, it didn’t seem safe to go into the heart of that. Especially when we are not familiar with the area,” Whittenburg said. “We had thought we would simply stand in the middle of town, holding signs.”
On Monday, Whittenburg released a statement that said the Southern Maine Chapter of the Million Mom March was “questioning the prudence” of the machine gun event. Billed as a “weekend of fast action and fun” where one can “witness a spectacular display of machine gun firepower with tracer and pyrotechnics sure to please all,” the event has a carnival-like atmosphere and promotes the idea that guns are toys, Whittenburg said.
“We are concerned that this event sends a message to our children that these guns are playthings rather than serious weapons of destruction,” she said. Noting that the event is open to all ages, with discount ticket prices available to children, Whittenburg said, “This only serves to desensitize our youth to the grave, damaging capability of these weapons. In these days of concern for youth violence, we are troubled that this event gives the wrong idea to impressionable young people.”

Machine-gun shooting events are held across the country, including Florida, Texas and Kentucky, where a 13-year-old girl was killed in 1995 when the 600-pound, 18-barrel gun she was firing fell on her and crushed her skull.
Sturk said this weekend’s shoot is expected to attract thousands of gun enthusiasts from across the country. “We actually double the size of the town,” said Sturk, with area merchants benefiting from a midsummer economic boost.
A wide array of firearms and firearm events, as well as military vehicles, are on display. There also will be live machine-gun shoots throughout the weekend that will give participants an opportunity to shoot firearms or just watch some incredible firepower.
On Saturday night, the society will sponsor a nighttime machine-gun shoot with live machine-gun firepower and more than 100,000 rounds of tracer fire and pyrotechnics. Everything from rare military items to collectible firearms will be available for sale or trade. All state and federal firearm laws will apply when purchasing or selling firearms, according to organizers.
Bill Harwood of the Maine Citizens Against Handgun Violence said earlier this week that his group had not considered protesting the shooting event.
“At this point, we are focusing our energies on other issues relating to gun violence,” he said. He said the group is quite busy with a gunlock giveaway program in which 100 Maine law enforcement agencies are participating.
“We are also working with the Portland City Council to pass a landmark gun ordinance,” said Harwood. “And we are already looking ahead to next year’s legislative session.”