AUGUSTA, Maine — Maine Democrats advanced a late proposal to create a “red flag” law in response to the Lewiston mass shooting, but it still has an uphill path to passage with divides in the party and opposition potentially looming from Gov. Janet Mills.
House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross, D-Portland, made several tweaks to her proposal that received public hearings on Friday after a spring nor’easter and Tuesday morning to allow for hundreds of people to share comments.
Most of the Democrats on the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee voted to advance it to the chamber floors late Tuesday. But Rep. Adam Lee, D-Auburn, sided with Republicans against it while another Democrat, Sen. Donna Bailey of Saco, put forward an alternate version of the bill that would allow the red flag law only in cases in which an existing law cannot be used.
The fractured report bodes badly for passage. Mills, also a Democrat, has not yet weighed in on the red flag measure. But she has proposed changes to the existing “yellow flag” law she and gun-rights advocates helped craft in 2019, raising major questions about the red flag bill’s odds for passage. Lawmakers are set to adjourn for the year as soon as next week.
Maine lawmakers have resisted further-reaching gun control measures in recent history. The Oct. 25 mass shooting in Lewiston that left 18 dead and 13 injured sharply changed the dialogue, leading Democrats to advance measures that have been defeated in the past.
The current yellow flag law requires police to take a person into protective custody and have them undergo a mental health evaluation before a judge can restrict their access to weapons after deeming them a threat to others or themselves.
A red flag law, currently in place in 21 states, would allow family or household members to directly petition a judge to temporarily remove weapons from a loved one who poses a “significant danger of causing severe harm” under the Talbot Ross proposal.
“I think it’s just going to offer one more tool to families that are trying to manage a crisis,” Rep. Amy Kuhn, D-Falmouth, said.
After Talbot Ross spoke with various groups, she amended her bill to require the Department of Public Safety to share updates on work under way to obtain federal funding for storing seized firearms, require courts to find “clear and convincing” evidence and clarify that making a false statement in a petition is perjury. Members also zeroed in on the definition of “family or household member” and expanding “firearms” to “dangerous weapons.”
The state commission investigating the Lewiston shooting released a preliminary report last month that found police had enough probable cause in September to initiate the yellow flag law with Robert Card II, a 40-year-old Army reservist from Bowdoin, following warnings from his family and peers.
Sagadahoc County sheriff’s deputies tried unsuccessfully to reach Card via welfare checks at his residence about a month before he carried out the rampage at a Lewiston bowling alley and bar. After a two-day manhunt, he was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The commission’s report led Republicans and gun control opponents to argue against new laws. Jill Walker, a social worker whose brother, Joseph Walker, was killed at Just-In-Time Recreation after trying to stop Card, said she believes the yellow flag process is adequate if used properly.
Testifying against the bill Tuesday morning, Jill Walker said she was “disturbed that some members of the Maine Legislature have seized the opportunity to nefariously use the Oct. 25 tragedy for a political end.”
Gun-control advocates and several law enforcement officers have called the existing yellow flag law cumbersome. It was used sparingly after it took effect in 2020 but expanded with the addition of a telehealth component last year. It skyrocketed after the shooting, when it was used 13 times in over two weeks, including on three people who invoked Card’s name or Lewiston.
Medical groups and district attorneys were among those to testify in support of the red flag bill, with advocates noting a person’s risk of causing harm is not always tied to a mental illness. Opponents weighing in before the amendment was available included Maine’s police chiefs and sheriffs who shared concerns about due process and not requiring mental health evaluations, among other issues.
Last month, the Judiciary Committee advanced several additional gun control measures from Democrats to require 72-hour waiting periods for firearm purchases, ban bump stocks and study the creation of a process to allow suicidal people to add themselves to a do-not-sell list for guns.
Those bills are awaiting floor votes, as is Mills’ proposal to tweak the yellow flag law by making it easier for police to take people into protective custody, require background checks for advertised gun sales and expand crisis receiving centers for mental health treatment, among other provisions.
A separate Talbot Ross bill to fund several violence prevention and mental health initiatives sailed through each chamber with support from both Democrats and Republicans. It awaits final budget approval.
