By Andy O’Brien

Early voting has begun in Maine elections, which will take place this year on November 4. On the ballot are two questions. Question 2 involves gun safety.

This is the text of Question 2 as it appears on the ballot:

QUESTION 2: “Do you want to allow courts to temporarily prohibit a person from having dangerous weapons if law enforcement, family, or household members show that the person poses a significant danger of causing physical injury to themselves or others?”

Current Maine law
Maine law currently has what is known as a “yellow flag” law on the books. This law requires that a mental health professional must first agree that an individual is a danger before police are allowed to petition a judge to order the person to relinquish their firearms. The current “yellow flag” law was negotiated by Gov. Janet Mills with the Sportsmen’s Alliance of Maine in 2019.

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Proposed changes to Maine law
If Maine votes “Yes” on Question 2, Maine would adopt what is commonly known as a “red flag” law. Currently, 21 states have enacted “red flag” laws. If voters approve the measure, families would be able to petition courts to issue an extreme risk protection order (ERPO) aimed at keeping firearms out of the hands of a loved one they fear might use a gun against themselves or others. The law would also allow family, law enforcement, or another household member to petition a court to prohibit a person from purchasing or possessing a gun if they believe such a purchase would pose a danger to themselves or others.

Proponents of changes
The Yes on 1 campaign argues that requiring a mental health professional to first determine whether an individual is a danger to themselves or others before the individual can be required to relinquish a weapon makes it difficult to prevent gun violence.

In a campaign ad in support of a “Yes” vote on Question 2, Arthur Barnard, father of Lewiston victim Artie Strout, says the current law is ineffective and failed to prevent the tragedy in Lewiston.

“People who are having a mental health crisis need help, not easy access to guns,” Barnard says in the ad. “Maine’s laws were too weak to save my son’s life. Vote ‘Yes on 2’ to change that. If Extreme Risk Protection Orders could prevent just one more family from ever having to experience what I’ve gone through – what my grandchildren are going through every day – it’s worth it.”

The Maine Association of Psychiatric Physicians (MAPP) testified in 2024 before the Maine Legislature that the current “yellow flag” law is “based on a false premise” that mental health professionals are able to determine who presents a risk of foreseeable harm and who does not. MAPP President Henry Skinner said, “The truth is that dangerous behavior is very hard to predict. There are too many individual and situational variables. In the absence of reliable criteria for determining foreseeable risk of harm, mental health professionals always opt to have the person’s weapons removed. If there were to be a bad outcome, they would have to live with it for the rest of their lives. … This makes the evaluation meaningless, because it always comes to the same conclusion.”

Skinner also said many people without mental illness find themselves in states of mind where they want to kill themselves or others. This could be due to substance use or emotional distress.

Opponents of changes
Mills and gun rights groups oppose Question 2. In her Sept. 26 radio address, Mills argued that Question 2 undermines public safety, and pointed out that law enforcement has been using the existing yellow flag law at a much higher rate than before the Lewiston shooting, because they now understand the law and their obligation to utilize it. She said that the referendum would shift responsibility of pursuing a court order to the family, and put them “on the front lines of a dangerous situation which risks your safety.”

“Here’s the bottom line for me,” Mills said. “And I say this as someone with decades of experience as a former private attorney, a district attorney, attorney general, and now as governor – if there is a potentially dangerous situation, I want the police involved as soon as possible because it’s their responsibility, not yours, to deal with dangerous people.”

An independent commission to investigate the Lewiston shooting headed by former Maine Supreme Judicial Court Justice Daniel Wathen concluded that the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office had “sufficient probable cause” to take Lewiston shooter Robert Card into protective custody under the yellow flag law and remove his weapons because he posed the likelihood of committing serious harm.