How would it be meaningless? You are now able to conceal without a permit. That's HUGE, not meaningless.
Where have you been? It's meaningless because there is a requirement to inform enforced by penalties.
Also, you CANNOT carry a concealed weapon without a permit now, the bill has not become law yet.
Given that a Maine concealed carry permit would be required under existing federal law in order to possess a firearm within 1,000 foot of a school zone (and these school zones are unmarked and everywhere, especially in cities), one could reasonably argue that they have no legal obligation to potentially incriminate themselves (thus no duty to inform).
Okay, you do that while I read about your court case in the news.
The first GFZA was declared unconstituional - have no doubt that the current one will also be.
Do you know why it was declared unconstitutional? It wasn't over the Second Amendment, it was over the Commerce Clause.
It will someday . . . until then no legal duty to inform if there is any remote chance one may be carrying within a 1,000 foot Federal gun-free school zone.
While you are in court for carrying a concealed weapon and failing to inform the police the state will no doubt argue that you were in fact licensed by the state to carry by virtue of state law and therefore cannot use that as a defense. If you were in fact inside a GFSZ at the time then to use that defense against a $100 fine you would have to admit, in a court of law, that you have committed a felony. I'm no lawyer, and I'm certainly not YOUR lawyer, but it seems to me that double jeopardy protections would not apply here.
If taken to federal court the federal government will no doubt argue that you had violated federal law as the state had not issued you a license. I suppose it it possible the state might send an attorney to argue in your defense but I would not count on it. This would be especially problematic for the state if you had already gone to court for failure to inform, you won't look like a squeaky clean law abiding citizen any more.
Good luck to you in either case, I hope you have some wealthy friends to pay your lawyers.
The problem with the GFSZA is that it is never, or rarely, enforced. I suspect this is by design. The powers that be have to know that if challenged in court it is quite possible that the GFSZA could be struck down. Getting GFSZA declared unconstitutional by a federal court would undoubtedly take years. During which time anyone accused would likely be sitting in prison. So, do you want to be the test case? You do that.
A quick internet search tells me that a concealed handgun license in Maine costs $35. With the fine for failure to inform being $100, and it being a federal felony for carrying in a school zone without a license I suspect that anyone that plans to carry a concealed weapon with any regularity will do the math and get a license.
I also did some searching on how Vermont handles this, as they never had a concealed carry permit system. I found two possible answers. First, by virtue of having no state law prohibiting the carry of weapons, and no permitting system in place, the GFSZA cannot be enforced in Vermont as concealed carry is not a crime. Second, as federal enforcement officers don't often find themselves wandering outside of schools looking for armed citizens there is little chance of anyone actually being caught.
If someone wants to claim that the probability of getting caught for failure to inform by the very nature of the weapon being concealed just tells me that the law as it stands right now is equally ineffective. Why then wait for the law to change? Just carry concealed now.