Maine Democrats advance key gun control bills in response to Lewiston shooting

AUGUSTA, Maine — Legislative Democrats on Wednesday advanced several gun control measures at the center of the response to Maine’s deadliest mass shooting on record, setting up a high-stakes set of floor votes in the coming weeks.

The Democratic proposals would implement 72-hour waiting periods, ban bump stocks, make mental health reforms and include a package from Gov. Janet Mills that proposes extending background checks to advertised gun sales and tweaking Maine’s “yellow flag” law.

The Judiciary Committee voted mostly along party lines Wednesday to advance all of those bills, with Rep. Adam Lee, D-Auburn, breaking with his party to back a different version of the waiting period bill. Last week, it also approved a suicide prevention-focused bill to explore creating a process for people to add themselves to a list prohibiting them from buying firearms.

The Democratic-led Legislature is moving the gun bills in the home stretch of a session scheduled to end by mid-April. The gun and mental health measures came after the Oct. 25 mass shooting at a Lewiston bowling alley and bar that left 18 dead and 13 injured . They generally cut against the Legislature’s long history of rejecting gun control measures.

Sen. Peggy Rotundo, D-Lewiston, is sponsoring the waiting periods bill, and Sen. Anne Carney, D-Cape Elizabeth, is proposing the bump stock ban that was tacked onto her bill to require the destruction of all firearms forfeited to police .

That late change as well as others won no quarter from Republicans on the committee. For example, Sen. Eric Brakey of Auburn wondered how people exempt from the waiting period would prove it, while Rep. Rachel Henderson of Rumford said it is necessarily difficult to get court orders to take people’s weapons away under the yellow flag law.

“It should not be an easier process to take someone’s rights away than it is to restore them,” she said in opposing Mills’ measure.

The governor’s bill would mandate background checks on advertised gun sales , upgrade the crime of selling a gun to a prohibited person from a misdemeanor to a Class C felony , add “recklessly” to the statute prohibiting such transfers and change the yellow flag law .

Currently, that law lets police take a person deemed dangerous into protective custody before they receive a mental health evaluation and go before a judge who can temporarily remove their access to guns.

Mills is attempting to make the protective custody process easier for police, such as by allowing officers to rely on a “third party” that recently observed or spoke with the person in question and allowing courts to consider “reliable hearsay” when extending weapons restrictions.

Committee members in both parties have asked questions about language in the bill, especially the terms “reliable hearsay” and “recklessly.” Shira Burns with the Maine Prosecutors’ Association, which supports the governor’s bill, noted “reliable hearsay” is used in other cases and “does satisfy due process.”

The commission investigating the Lewiston mass shooting released a preliminary report this month that found the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office should have initiated the yellow flag process with Card last September, when deputies responded to concerns from the Army reservist’s peers and family about his behavior and threats by conducting welfare checks at Card’s residence and leaving when he did not answer the door while police heard him inside.

Sgt. Aaron Skolfield insisted he could not begin the yellow flag process because he had “not laid eyes” on Card, but the commission said it has been “long established” that police can use the collective knowledge of other investigators and private citizens to establish probable cause.

Mills’ plan also would create a violence and injury data hub and additional crisis receiving centers to treat people in mental health emergencies. The governor’s bill complements a mental health- and violence prevention-focused proposal from House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross, D-Portland, that has moved through both chambers with unanimous support.

The Army’s inspector general is conducting an independent review of the Lewiston shooting, after the Army Reserve completed two internal reviews. The state commission reviewing the shooting faulted Card’s commander for not telling police about recommendations from mental health providers in New York to remove weapons from Card’s residence, among other findings.

BDN writer Michael Shepherd contributed to this report.