What are Maine’s gun laws and how do our leaders want to change them?

MAINE, USA — The controversy about new gun laws on the nationwide scale is reignited after 19 elementary college kids and two academics had been shot and killed in Uvalde, Texas.

Efforts are underway within the Home and the Senate, and Mainers are re-examining the state’s personal gun legal guidelines.

“It is one of many loosest gun-regulated states within the nation,” College of Maine legislation professor Margaret Groban stated Thursday.

“I want that Maine had a crimson flag legislation which might enable relations to go to courtroom and petition that firearms be taken away from their cherished one,” she stated. “We do not have that. We have now a yellow flag legislation … it is not so good as the crimson flag legislation however it’s higher than nothing.”

The yellow flag legislation, distinctive to Maine, offers police the power to petition the courts to quickly take away lethal weapons from somebody who’s been deemed a menace to themselves or others by a medical skilled.

For the reason that yellow flag legislation was instituted, it has been used 23 occasions statewide by legislation enforcement, in response to the Maine Lawyer Common’s workplace.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, hopes to make the yellow flag legislation a federal legislation.

“I believe that Maine obtained it proper,” Collins stated Thursday. “In Maine, you contain the medical skilled, the police officer, and the choose. All of them three are going to be concerned and there are due course of protections built-in. The order is sweet for a yr with one likelihood to problem it throughout a yr however then it must be reviewed and renewed.”

The yellow flag legislation in Maine, in response to The Press Herald, is underutilized as a result of quick provide of medical professionals which can be speculated to assess if somebody is mentally match to personal a firearm. 

“It may be troublesome to discover a medical skilled,” Collins stated. “I am engaged on that entrance too to attempt to improve the provision of psychological well being suppliers in our nation, but when you do not have a medical evaluation then you might have a scenario the place a choose or a police officer who’re very well-intended however haven’t got the experience to make this judgement having to take action. That is why I believe Maine obtained it proper.”

However authorized analysts, like Groban, stated the quick provide of medical suppliers necessitates a stricter legislation nationally.

“I believe relations are those who know firsthand whether or not or not a member of the family is in disaster and shouldn’t be in possession of firearms,” Groban stated.

Maine has extra legal guidelines that make it a looser state for gun regulation, in response to Bates School professor Michael Rocque.

“You don’t have any journal restrict, you haven’t any allow to hold, no background test for personal gross sales,” Rocque stated.

“It is an attention-grabbing combine the place we’ve got one thing in place that may very well be helpful for decreasing gun crime or gun violence basically after which we’ve got others which can be very lax gun legal guidelines, for positive,” Rocque stated.

The shortage of {a magazine} capability in Maine is one thing Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, stated he is engaged on.

“In Maine, for instance, should you go looking you possibly can have {a magazine} with 5 bullets,” King stated. ” One within the chamber and 5 within the journal. We do not want magazines with 20, 30, 40, 50 rounds.”

King was additionally a co-sponsor of a invoice final yr to make crimson flag legal guidelines the nationwide commonplace. That will have allowed legislation enforcement or a choose to remove somebody’s weapon with out the necessity for a medical skilled.

Meantime Congresswoman Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, can be a co-sponsor of a invoice to ascertain excessive threat safety orders nationwide.

“I believe the variety of shootings we’re having across the nation … I am knocking on wooden, however nobody can assume that their neighborhood is not weak to this,” she stated. “Nobody is aware of the place it’ll occur subsequent. All we are able to predict is that it’ll occur subsequent so it is vital to take motion as quickly as we are able to.”

The Home of Representatives will take up the invoice Pingree co-sponsored the week of June 6.