Maine, a largely rural state where gun ownership is common, is a place where even some Democratic lawmakers were reluctant to impose new limits on guns.
That dynamic changed significantly after the Oct. 25 shooting, the deadliest in state history.
Lawmakers passed a bill Thursday expanding background checks to cover private gun sales advertised on platforms such as Facebook. On Wednesday, they also approved a measure establishing a 72-hour waiting period for gun purchases. Just last year, two similar measures failed to garner enough votes.
Another bill passed by the Legislature this week will ban bump stocks, accessories that increase the rate of fire of semi-automatic weapons.
However, state lawmakers did not vote on a proposed alert measure, which would have given family members and law enforcement a way to remove firearms from people considered a danger to themselves or others.
Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) has not yet signed the bills passed by the legislature.
This week’s votes mark the culmination of a legislative session that opened with hundreds of people gathering at the State House to push for stricter gun laws. In emotional testimony, victims’ family members pleaded with lawmakers to act.
After last year’s shooting, there were heartbreaking revelations about missed opportunities to stop the shooter. People who knew the shooter — reservist Robert Card — had repeatedly told authorities they were concerned about his mental state and access to weapons.
A friend and colleague in the Army Reserve informed the sheriff’s office in September that he thought Card was “going to snap and carry out a mass shooting.” A sheriff’s deputy went to Card’s home to check on him and spotted someone inside, but left after no one answered the door.
Card died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound after going on a rampage at two Lewiston locations: Just-in-Time Recreation, a bowling alley and the Schemengees Bar and Grille.
Gun violence prevention groups had pushed for the passage of a warning law in response to the shooting. Such measures generally allow relatives and police to ask a judge to remove weapons from someone who may harm themselves or others. More than 20 states have adopted such laws.
Maine, on the other hand, has an unusual “yellow flag” law, which sets a high bar for gun removal. The process begins with taking a person into custody, which means the police must first locate them.
Next, a clinician conducts a mental health assessment to determine whether the person is likely to harm themselves or others. If so, law enforcement can ask a judge to stop the person from owning or purchasing guns.
An independent commission investigating the Lewiston shooting released an interim report last month concluding that sheriff’s deputies should have initiated the yellow flag process in Card’s case. He also acknowledged that Card’s custody “may not have been without difficulty and potential risk.”
The Legislature passed a proposal from the governor adjusting the yellow flag law. This would allow law enforcement officers to seek a warrant to take someone into protective custody under the law if other attempts to do so have failed.
Nacole Palmer, executive director of the Maine Gun Safety Coalition, said a narrow change was not enough. “It would be a mistake to legislate solely based on the latest crisis, the latest tragedy,” she said. “The next one won’t look like this.”
Gun rights advocates, for their part, denounced the series of restrictions ultimately adopted by lawmakers. The measures reflect “cookie-cutter” legislation pushed by national advocacy groups and are “out of step” with Maine’s “proud heritage of gun ownership,” wrote Justin Davis of the National Rifle Association and Laura Whitcomb of Gun Owners of Maine in an opinion piece last month.
The defenders, galvanized by the October massacres, vowed to continue. Joe Anderson, a doctor at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston, was working at the hospital the night of the shooting and treated one of the victims.
The next night he couldn’t sleep, he said. He knew he had to do more. He then organized a gathering of hundreds of health care providers in November, an effort that morphed into a new advocacy group called Maine Providers for Gun Safety.
“Any progress is progress, and we’re certainly happy with whatever we can get this session,” Anderson said. But the failure to pass the red flag bill is “simply unacceptable.”
For a long time, he said, many Maine residents persisted in believing their state was different when it came to the national scourge of gun violence.
“It took this happening before my eyes for it to become a priority,” Anderson said. And “the reality is that’s what’s happened to many legislators in this state.”
washingtonpost
