Maine shooting victims’ families address panel
People who lost their loved ones in October’s mass shooting in Maine addressed an independent investigatory commission Thursday with emotional testimony, days after Gov. Janet Mills vowed to strengthen gun laws.
Under existing laws, the weapons of a man suffering from a mental health crisis were not confiscated. He then killed 18 people in Lewiston.
“The system failed, and we can’t allow this to happen again,” said Kathleen Walker, whose husband, Jason, died after he reportedly rushed at the shooter.
Megan Vozzella said her husband was killed two weeks before their first wedding anniversary. Elizabeth Seal said the death of her husband, Joshua, left her to raise four children alone.
At her State of the State address Tuesday, Mills laid out a legislative plan to expand Maine’s background checks for gun sales and close a loophole in the “yellow flag” law.
The second change “would allow law enforcement to seek the permission of a judge to take a person into protective custody when that individual is not voluntarily making themselves available to law enforcement,” Mills spokesperson Scott Ogden said in an email.
According to the proposal, if a person is deemed dangerous by a medical practitioner and judge, law enforcement could confiscate their weapons, pending a full hearing before a court.
“This will remove a barrier by providing law enforcement with another tool to ensure that someone is taken into protective custody and their weapons are removed,” Mills said.
Maine’s gun laws came under scrutiny after revelations that local deputies knew of the shooter’s deteriorating mental state months before the shooting, but failed to take his guns or take him into custody.
In Jan. 25 testimony before the independent commission investigating the Lewiston killings, Sagadahoc County Sheriff Joel Merry defended his office’s choice not to arrest the shooter. “There is always after a tragedy an opportunity to wonder if more could have been done. But that analysis must always take into consideration the limitations placed on law enforcement by the law at the time of the event,” Merry told the commission.
A second prong of Mills’ proposed bill would require private gun sellers in Maine to run a criminal background check on all buyers.
Federally licensed firearm dealers already are required to run background checks before gun purchases. But “that very same person can walk out of a gun shop and go to Facebook Marketplace, or Craigslist, or Uncle Henry’s, and buy through private commercial sale the same weapon they were just denied, a weapon they’re not legally allowed to have,” Mills said.
In 2016 Maine voters rejected a referendum that would have expanded background checks. Contributing: The Associated Press