‘Red Flag’ Law Gets the Green Light From Maine Voters

There wasn’t much pre-election polling on the “red flag” referendum on the ballot in Maine, though one survey from October showed opposition at 40%, support at 38% and 22% undecided. If that poll was anywhere close to accurate, then virtually all of those late-deciding voters ended up backing the referendum, because in the end it wasn’t even close. 

As of Wednesday morning, Question 2 establishing a Extreme Risk Protection Order process in Maine has 63% approval, with 37% opposed. 

Second Amendment advocates with the No on 2 campaign, responding to the returns on Tuesday night, declared that the state “just passed the biggest, far-reaching piece of gun control in its history,” adding:

“A combination of hundreds of thousands of dollars of out of state funding being pumped into the Yes on 2 campaign, the proponents twisting the truth about the Lewiston shootings and current law, and the intentionally vague language presented to the Maine people by the Secretary of State would have taken a miracle to overcome.

Add to that the millions of dollars spent by the No on One campaign, and many of those voters being exposed to the aforementioned ambiguous wording for the first time when they got their ballots was a recipe for disaster for gun rights and due process in Maine.

Gun control activist Nacole Palmer, who headed up the pro-“red flag” campaign, called the vote a victory for “responsible, common sense, gun legislation that will save lives and help keep our kids and communities safe.”

Supporters of the referendum were able to rack up huge margins in vote-rich places like Portland (88% approval), Bangor (69% approval), Lewiston (68% approval) and Scarborough (79% approval). Even though many (but not all) rural areas voted heavily agains the measure, opponents simply couldn’t compete against those overwhelming numbers in Maine’s biggest towns and cities.

So what happens next? The “yellow flag” law that’s currently in place will remain on the books, but its use will likely decline precipitously once the ERPO system is up and running. Why would police or prosecutors go through a process that requires an evaluation by a mental health professional and imposes more due process protections on the subject of a petition when they can bypass those steps and take their petition directly to a judge who can issue a “red flag” order without even talking to the person presumed to be a danger to themselves or others? 

As opponents indicated on Tuesday evening, some of the messaging around Question 2 was disingenuous at best, and downright dishonest at worst. One ad, for instance, featured the father of a victim of the Lewiston shooting, who said “People who are having a mental health crisis need help, not easy access to guns,” adding, “Maine’s laws were too weak to save my son’s life.”

There is no mental health component whatsoever to the “red flag” law approved by voters, and no help will be provided to someone subject to an Extreme Risk Protection Order if a judge deems them to be a danger to themselves or others. Like every other “red flag” law on the books, once an order has been issued and guns have been seized the state considers the problem solved, even if the supposedly dangerous individual still has access to knives, gasoline, matches, or anything else they can use to harm themselves or others 

Supporters of “red flag” laws can only cite studies that say they only prevent one suicide for every 13 to 23 petitions that are granted; a success rate of less than 10%. Backers of Question 2, though, presented the referendum as the opportunity for Mainers to do “something” in response to the Lewiston shooting. I don’t think their decision is going to make the state any safer, but it’s pretty clear that when given the option of doing something or keeping the status quo in place, action was the more popular choice. 

Republicans and pro-2A forces had sought to put a competing measure on the ballot that would have strengthened the state’s mental health safety net, particularly in rural areas, but they were stymied by Democrats in control of the state legislature. We’ll never know if that measure would have won out over the “red flag” proposal, but I can’t help but wonder how Tuesday night would have turned out if voters had been given the option of doing two different “somethings” instead of standing pat or enacting an Extreme Risk Protection Order scheme.   

Editor’s Note: The Schumer Shutdown is here. Rather than put the American people first, Chuck Schumer and the radical Democrats forced a government shutdown for healthcare for illegals. They own this.

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