After experiencing the deadliest mass shooting in state history last year, Maine is poised to pass a series of new gun safety laws aimed at minimizing the chance of an even worse attack in the future.
The Maine state House followed its Senate on Monday in passing the governor’s omnibus gun safety bill, which strengthens the state’s so-called “yellow flag” law, strengthens background checks for private gun sales and makes it a crime to recklessly carry a gun to sell to a prohibited person. person. The bill also funds violence prevention initiatives and opens a mental health crisis shelter in Lewiston, Maine, where 18 people were killed and 13 others injured in an Oct. 25 shooting.
The massacre took place at the Just-in-Time Recreation bowling alley and then continued at a nearby restaurant. The killings shocked the community and inspired voters and lawmakers to adopt meaningful gun reforms.
But these calls, coming from a state with a rich culture and history of hunting, were met with resistance from influential gun rights groups.
Those same groups opposed universal background checks for firearm purchases, which state voters rejected in 2016.
More votes are scheduled in the Democratic-controlled Legislature before it adjourns Wednesday.
The Maine House will also vote on two bills passed by the Senate: waiting periods for gun purchases and a ban on bump stocks.
One gun safety bill that failed was a proposal to let gun violence victims sue gun manufacturers. And so far, neither chamber has voted on a proposed red flag law that would allow family members to ask a judge to take away guns from someone in a mental health crisis. That proposal differs from the state’s current yellow flag law, which puts police in charge of that process.
Meanwhile, another measure sponsored by House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross to fund a range of mental health and violence prevention initiatives is awaiting money in the final budget.
Police were warned by relatives of the October 2023 mass shooter – an army reservist who died by suicide – that he was becoming paranoid and losing his grip on reality before the attack. He was hospitalized last summer while training with his Army Reserve unit, and his best friend, a fellow reservist, warned that the man was “going to commit a mass shooting.”
The shooting prompted an investigation into the gunman’s mental health, at the direction of his family. The results showed that he had suffered a traumatic brain injury in the past.
Ann McKee, a physician at Boston University’s Center for Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), where the gunman’s brain tissue was analyzed, said in a statement: “While I cannot say with certainty that these pathological findings underlie [his] behavioral changes in the last ten months of his life, based on our previous work, brain injury likely played a role in his symptoms.”
