
After a gunman killed 18 people last year at a bowling alley and a bar in Maine, legislators pledged to revisit the state’s gun laws.
This week, after months of debate, they approved new restrictions on weapons sales but did not pass a measure that would have significantly strengthened the ability to remove guns from those deemed dangerous.
Maine, a largely rural state where gun ownership is common, is a place where even some Democratic lawmakers had been reluctant to enact fresh limits on guns.
That dynamic changed considerably after the Oct. 25 shooting, the deadliest in the state’s history.
Lawmakers passed a bill Thursday that expanded background checks to cover private gun sales advertised on platforms such as Facebook. On Wednesday, they had approved a measure instituting a 72-hour waiting period for gun purchases. In June, two similar measures had failed to win enough votes.
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Another bill passed by the legislature this week will ban bump stocks, accessories that increase the firing rate of semiautomatic weapons.
However, the state’s legislators did not vote on a proposed “red-flag” measure that would have given family members and law enforcement a way to remove guns from those deemed a danger to themselves or others.
The bills passed by the legislature now await the signature of Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D). A spokesman for the governor said she will sign the expanded background check measure and will review the other bills.
This week’s votes mark the culmination of a legislative session that opened with hundreds of people gathering at the State House to press for tighter gun laws. In emotional testimony, relatives of the victims pleaded with legislators to act.
After last year’s shooting, there were wrenching revelations about missed chances to stop the gunman. People who knew the shooter — Army reservist Robert Card — had repeatedly told authorities that they were concerned about his mental state and access to weapons.
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A friend and fellow member of the Army Reserve informed a sheriff’s office in September that he believed Card was “going to snap and do a mass shooting.” A sheriff’s deputy visited Card’s home to check on him and heard someone inside but left after no one answered the door.
Card died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after carrying out a rampage at two locations in Lewiston: Just-in-Time Recreation, a bowling alley, and Schemengees Bar and Grille.
Gun violence prevention groups had pushed for the passage of a red-flag law in response to the shooting. Such measures typically allow relatives and police to petition a judge to remove weapons from someone considered likely to harm themselves or others. More than 20 states have enacted such statutes.
Share this articleShareMaine, by contrast, has an unusual “yellow-flag” law, which sets a high bar for the removal of firearms. The process begins with taking someone into protective custody, meaning police must first locate the person.
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Then a clinician conducts a mental health evaluation to determine whether the person is likely to harm themselves or others. If so, law enforcement can petition a judge to prevent the person from possessing or buying weapons.
An independent commission investigating the shooting in Lewiston issued an interim report last month finding that sheriff’s deputies should have initiated the yellow-flag process in Card’s case. It also acknowledged that taking Card into custody “might not have been without difficulty and potential risk.”
The legislature adopted a proposal from the governor adjusting the yellow-flag law. It would allow law enforcement officers to seek a warrant to take someone into protective custody under the statute if other attempts to do so have failed.
Nacole Palmer, executive director of the Maine Gun Safety Coalition, said the narrow change wasn’t sufficient. “It would be a mistake to legislate purely to the last crisis, the last tragedy,” she said. “The next one isn’t going to look like that.”
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Gun rights advocates, meanwhile, decried the slate of restrictions ultimately passed by the legislature. The measures reflect “cookie-cutter” legislation pushed by national advocacy groups and are “out-of-step” with Maine’s “proud gun-owning heritage,” Justin Davis of the National Rifle Association and Laura Whitcomb of Gun Owners of Maine wrote in an opinion piece last month.
Advocates galvanized by the October mass killing vowed to press onward. Joe Anderson, a physician at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston, was working at the hospital the night of the shooting and treated one of the victims.
The following night he couldn’t sleep, he said. He knew he had to do more. He went on to organize a rally of hundreds of health-care providers in November, an effort that grew into a new advocacy group called Maine Providers for Gun Safety.
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“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 “just not acceptable,” he said.
For a long time, he said, many Maine residents persisted in the belief that their state was different when it came to the national scourge of gun violence.
“It took it happening right in front of my eyes for it to become a priority,” Anderson said. And “the reality is that is what has happened for a lot of legislators in this state.”
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