AUGUSTA, Maine — Mainers filled a State House committee room Friday to testify on a late Democratic effort to create a “red flag” law after the state’s deadliest mass shooting on record, but Gov. Janet Mills remains a question mark on it.
House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross, D-Portland, unveiled the bill cosponsored by several other Democrats last week. It came before the Judiciary Committee on Friday for a late-session public hearing, as most other committees have completed work ahead of lawmakers seeking to adjourn this month, but the Democratic governor was not among those to weigh in yet.
Mills has been cooler to more sweeping gun measures. In January, she proposed tweaking the yellow flag law she and gun-rights advocates helped craft in 2019 to make it easier for police to take people into custody along with mandating background checks on advertised gun sales.
But her office neither commented on her stance Thursday nor sent administration officials to testify at the Friday hearing a day after a spring nor’easter. Roughly 100 people signed up to testify on the bill that would allow family members to petition a judge to temporarily remove weapons from a loved one who poses a “significant danger of causing severe harm” to others.
“We can’t wait for another tragedy,” Maine Gun Safety Coalition Executive Director Nacole Palmer said, joined by leaders such as Dr. Paul Cain, the Maine Medical Association president, who testified in support of the bill and noted its potential to also prevent gun suicides.
Opponents included Gun Owners of Maine Vice President Joshua Raines, who said existing laws should have prevented the Lewiston shooting and called the bill “a solution looking for a problem.”
The state’s novel “yellow flag” law came under intense scrutiny after the Oct. 25 mass shooting at a Lewiston bowling alley and bar that left 18 dead and 13 injured. It requires police to first take a person into protective custody and get them a mental health evaluation before a judge can consider removing their access to guns.
A state commission Mills formed to investigate the shooting released a preliminary report in March that found police had enough probable cause last 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 to reach Card via welfare checks at his residence but left when he did not answer the door. A month later, he carried out the Lewiston rampage and was found dead two days later of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
In response to Republicans arguing the commission’s initial report found the yellow flag law is sufficient, Talbot Ross said a red flag law could complement and not replace the existing process. Under the bill, a judge could issue an order to seize guns from a person deemed an “imminent and significant danger.” This type of law is currently in place in 21 states.
Talbot Ross said Friday she will likely amend the bill based on feedback to use a more expansive “dangerous weapon” term instead of “firearm,” require the Department of Public Safety to store seized weapons instead of local agencies and require courts to find “clear and convincing” evidence, among other tweaks.
Gun-control advocates have called the existing yellow flag law cumbersome. It was used relatively sparingly after it took effect in 2020, but use expanded with the addition of a telehealth component in 2023. It skyrocketed after the shooting, when it was used 13 times in just over two weeks, including on three people who invoked Card’s name or Lewiston.
Under the Talbot Ross bill, judges could issue an order to restrict weapons access for up to a year if they find someone to be a danger to themselves or others, or they could deny a petition and share the reasons for doing so. The person facing the order could appeal a judge’s decision or request its termination later on.
The Judiciary Committee also advanced last month Democratic bills to implement 72-hour waiting periods for firearm purchases, ban bump stocks and study the potential creation of a process for suicidal people to add their names to a do-not-sell list for guns.
A separate Talbot Ross proposal to fund several violence prevention efforts and crisis receiving centers that treat people in mental health emergencies has received unanimous support in each chamber.