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Governor
Janet Mills of Maine is a low-key type focused on getting results rather than generating empty headlines. Her demeanor, though occasionally punctuated by sly drollery, leans hard toward matter of fact.
Which is why her State of the State address on Tuesday was so striking. There were moments when Mills struggled to keep her voice from breaking as she described the victims of the
Oct. 25, 2023, mass shooting in Lewiston.
“Over the last few months, I have been to too many funerals, expressing your condolences for all of you to the loved ones of too many lost too soon,”
she said. “And I have sat with myself — and my own conscience — reflecting upon what is right for Maine.”
She came away from that reflection determined to bring meaningful, bipartisan gun-safety change to her state, a place that was rocked by two traumatic incidents of gun violence in 2023 — the Lewiston shootings, which claimed the lives of 18, and
an April 18 shooting in Bowdoin that left four dead.
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The Lewiston massacre revealed serious weaknesses in the state’s yellow flag gun removal law. Mills’s proposal would give law enforcement agents the ability, with a judge’s sign-off, to take a mentally unstable person into protective custody, a step necessary to start the process of confiscating weapons. Then, if a medical evaluator and a judge both deemed that person dangerous to themselves or others, police could remove their weapons, pending a full court hearing.
Mills also proposed two steps to close the gun show or private sale loophole, which allows unlicensed private firearms peddlers to sell guns without executing federal background checks on buyers.
Mainers narrowly defeated a ballot question to end the private sales exemption back in 2016. Although the measure initially had the support of about 60 percent of Mainers,
it ended up losing, 52 percent to 48 percent. One target for the progun crowd: The proposed ballot law would have required that even temporary transfers or loans of firearms be subjected to background checks.
As Mills acknowledged Tuesday, she had previously let that public verdict limit her range of considered actions. “But now, in the aftermath of the violence we have seen across Maine, I have asked myself whether this approach is still the correct one,” she said. Her conclusion: No. Important changes are needed.
Her plan calls for requiring a private seller to conduct a background check for the purchase of any gun advertised for sale in any manner. Her plan would also render it harder for a seller to invoke ignorance as a defense for selling a firearm to a prohibited buyer by adding the term “recklessly” to the current law, under which it is a crime to
“knowingly or intentionally” carry out such a sale. Plus, that crime would become a felony.
“If you are selling to a stranger, you should perhaps visit a licensed firearm dealer to check the NICS system and make sure they are not a prohibited person,”
she said. “Because ‘I’m sorry I just didn’t know’ just isn’t going to fly like it used to.”
The governor’s goal, say those familiar with her thinking, is to build broad bipartisan support for her gun-safety measures, one that will survive if and when Republicans retake the governorship or regain control of the Legislature. To that end, Mills is trying to expand the center, even if, as she concedes, her proposals will disappoint those who wanted more sweeping change.
One positive sign: The
Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine, which holds considerable sway with the state’s gun owners, not only held its fire on her plan
but even offered muted praise for her approach.
One negative sign:
In a radio interview, House Republican leader
Billy Bob Faulkingham cited his mother’s description of the speech as “a bunch of gibberish about Lewiston and climate change” and said he didn’t think the state should make gun policy based on the Lewiston tragedy. He also offered up the shopworn saw that little can be done to stop someone determined to obtain a weapon. In fact,
states with tougher gun laws have markedly less gun violence. Still, his criticism seemed more pro forma formulaic than adamant.
Given the stalemate in Washington, gun-safety efforts need to focus on state capitals as well. That means tailoring approaches to what can work in different localities.
Mills’s package is an important step in that direction, and not just for the Pine Tree State. Since
Maine is a regular source for guns used in crimes in other New England states, reducing unchecked sales would be a boon to the entire region.
And if she can make it a bipartisan response and not just a Democratic one, given the swing-state makeup of Maine, a rural state with many hunters, that would be an important symbolic victory for gun safety overall.
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