A proposal for a red flag law that more than 20 states have adopted failed in 2019 in favor of the yellow flag law that backers said would stop suicides and protect both the public and the constitutional rights of gun owners.
The yellow flag law had the support of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine, which was instrumental in writing it and viewed other states’ red flag laws as unconstitutional. Some also saw the suicide rate as a far bigger concern in Maine than mass shootings.
Under it, law enforcement can detain someone they suspect is mentally ill and poses a threat to themselves or others.
The law differs from red flag laws in that it requires police first to get a medical practitioner to evaluate the person and find them to be a threat before police can petition a judge to order the person’s firearms to be seized.
Gun-control advocates had criticized the law as ham-handed and unlikely to be used by families who don’t want to traumatize a loved one by having them taken into custody.
Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins said she thinks a ban on high-capacity magazines is the best approach to stop this kind of gun violence. She also said at a news conference that from what she has heard, the yellow flag law should have been enforced.
“The fact, the suspect was hospitalized for two weeks for mental illness should have triggered the yellow flag law. He should have been separated from his weapons,” Collins said at a news conference Thursday in Lewiston. “I’m sure that after the fact, that it’s going to be looked at very closely.”
But the limited details released by police don’t make it clear whether the yellow flag law should have stopped the suspect in the Lewiston shootings or where he got any guns he used.
— AP in Maine passed a law to try to prevent mass shootings. Some say more is needed after Lewiston killings
So dumb, mag bans are unconstitutional. This person should have been kept under surveillance for a few years.
Dumb, yes, and unconstitutional yes but, mostly, dumb. Laws dictating the capacity of magazines have had/will have/may have nor more impact on homicide rates than a ban on ice cream containers larger than one pint would/could have on diabetes.
“So dumb, mag bans are unconstitutional. ”
Such ban hasn’t been ruled on by SC, yet. However, the idea of a ban is logical.
Anti-gunners believe they are the average, reasonable person. This leads to thinking that they cannot swap magazines easily, or quickly. Thus, every other average person also cannot swap magazines easily, or quickly. Forcing a murderous person to swap mags after 5 or 10 rounds, means dozens, maybe hundreds, of targets can escape while the shooter fumbles with changing magazines.
We cannot make laws based on the actions of a few that punish millions. That’s awful tyranny! If 4 armed men attack me, I need 80 rounds…. You have no authority over how I defend myself!
“You have no authority over how I defend myself!”
Maybe a reflex reaction; you might have missed the point of the original comment.
Even during the 94 to 04 AWB banned mags exceeding allowed capacity were widely available. I have quite a collection of LEO marked mags from that era and I am not in law enforcement.
If the tool available was used there’d be no reason to demand more tools.
Exactly.
Uh…The perp in Maine is much too crazy to abide by any laws. At this point I bet he no longer stops at red lights, etc. And RINO susan collins you are not banning sht simply because you and your pompous Gun Control pals won’t ever be anywhere around to assist anyone cornered by a criminal…The kind of criminals who will kill you and yours without rhyme or reason.
Frankly RINO susan collins it’s a tossup between who wants to tie the hands of the law abiding tighter…ignorant busy body azzhats like you or the criminals.
The Collins demographic thinks of gun control as simply taking the toys away from the boys. And they just can’t believe that that nice King George person and his magnificent Redcoats actually lost to G Washington and his deplorable rabble.
Which might explain the 24/7 frontpage coverage of the Royal Family and Harris’s recent recommendation that the US turn itself into Australia.
The whole idea of these Liberal Democrat “Feelz Good” laws is to not use them. Purposely allowing them to fail, so their emotionally controlled acolytes can scream for more stringent laws. That will once again not be utilized. Until the ultimate goal of overturning the 2nd Amendment is reached. Remember they play the Long Game in their pursuit of the Transformative Society. Which began with the Indoctrination of children in the formally known as, public education system and continues through the university system. As is being witnessed with the pro Hamas demonstrations all across the nation. As long as the ideology and those who worship it are allowed. They will always be a danger to the Constitutional Rights, this nation was founded on.
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”
― Ronald Reagan
Is ‘Our’ generation the last one and the one that allows those Freedoms to die, because it was to difficult to defend and protect them. As is the duty of ‘We the People’, passed down by our forefathers. Who fought sacrificed and died. To see that those freedoms could be experienced by their children and their children’s children. Will as you are lying in bed breathing your last breath of servitude to the government. Knowing your descendants will never experience freedom. Not wish you had acted when you still had the chance to due your duty to the Freedoms left in your care. It is about choices and even if you choose not to decide…You still have made a choice.
Too many elected officials (on both sides) are far too caught up in craziness that they simply cannot be bothered to actually deal with keeping the peace. What we saw in Card and all the rest are failures of government with so few people in the general population carrying guns for various reasons. The warning signs are there well in advance but they all get ignored because these lunatics are being used to justify taking guns from the American people. It is no coincidence that we are seeing serious increases in mental health issues during a presidential administration that struggles with mental health issues. There needs to be a reckoning and these people held to account. This chaos is about to escalate to a full scale global shooting war.
“Too many elected officials (on both sides) are far too caught up in craziness …”
It is “crazy” to keep political donations rolling in, keep people voting for you?
There has been a constant refrain from reasonable Americans for more than two years now: enforce existing laws. If existing laws aren’t enforced, why should we believe that new laws will be enforced? Far more likely that they will be selectively enforced to punish Whitey, and seldom enforced against Antifag types/
2 years??? 3-4 decades at least.
IMO – the section of Maine law that is relevant to this incident is the part that makes weapons possession illegal in premises that serve liquor, with stiff penalties…
I suspected the locations of the massacres were gun free zones and it looks like they are.
https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/17-A/title17-Asec1057.html
Wait, so the suspect broke the law carrying a rifle into a prohibited location? No way that could happen. Pretty sure threatening people with a weapon, shooting a weapon in public places, shooting at people, actually shooting people… assault, battery, manslaughter, or, how about murder? yeah those are illegal too. Why didn’t the suspect obey the law?
So definitely it was magazine capacity that was the problem. Everyone else’s mag capacity. If you have more than 10 rounds in your gun in Maine, you actually killed those people. And Trump and the NRA, Ron DeSantis, all deplorable Republicans and conservatives are also to blame for sure.
1) the main target here will be manufacturer’s immunity.
2) the fact that the shooter had no fear or chance of being shot immediately due to a deeply stupid gun free zone law will be lost completely. Absolutely no one will sue over that.
3): Canada (and the royal family, as well as the UN and prolly North Korea and China) will be actively trying to interfere with our Bill of Rights – after all, the shooter might be lurking there.
The text of the law seems to allow carrying a weapon in premises serving alcohol as long as there is no visible sign posted and the person carrying is not under the influence of alcohol or other stuff. Was there a sign posted at the bowling place?
The main point is – no one was shooting back at this asshole, and he had every reason to EXPECT that. He *knew* he was not going to get shot, judging by his body english in the surveillance.
There was unarmed resistance. so the spirits were willing, may they RIP.
Armed resistance reduces casualties.
As to whether that particular bowling alley served beer, had signs posted, etc, you will have to contact your Minister of Information on that.
I could not agree more.
Everything about the Killer’s life is now for public view except:
●Who released him?
●Why he was released?
●Was there follow on treatment?
●Did he comply with treatment?
●If he didn’t comply why was he not reconfined?
It’s highly doubtful that this information will ever be publicly released because it will make responsibility easy to attach. The excuse will be “patient confidentiality”.
“●Did he comply with treatment?”
It’s inhumane to FORCE someone to take dangerous, mind-altering drugs!
“●If he didn’t comply why was he not reconfined?”
The mentally-ill are no more dangerous than anyone else, they assured us. It’s inhumane to lock someone up with a mental illness. We closed those evil asylums in the 60’s, thank God!
(That’s SARCASM, BTW… 🙁 )
” Susan Collins said she thinks a ban on high-capacity magazines is the best approach to stop this kind of gun violence.”
Good grief. The turd who shot up the Florida school used ten round magazines. The real problem is people can’t or won’t fight back. It’s happening now, as we saw in Indiana and a few other places, but if more of these nutjobs are shot on sight by armed citizens, and the news celebrates the citizen rather than trumpeting the name of the mass murderer, it may serve as a deterrent effect. There are stories coming out of Maine that several men in the bowling alley charged the shooter. If they had had firearms, even J-frames, who knows who could have been saved?
Buy a firearm you can shoot, train with, and carry. The more people that do this, the better. It is the best solution.
The Powers That Be don’t care about gun violence. They just use it as an excuse to disarm us?? Why? Because they know an armed population won’t put up with their fucking bullshit. They are scared for their own worthless skins.
Massive NON compliance is happening right now in Illannoy. Something like 0.08% of FOID card holder’s (out of 2415000) registered their verboten rifles,semiautomatic shottie’s & magazine’s. At the the same time no bail for most crimes. I doubt the State Po-leece will enforce these illegal order’s ( at least where they might get shot). They sure don’t go after Chiraq gangbangers🙄
Angus King, Maines version of Bernie Sanders, said pretty much the same thing.
They know they’ve lost, for the time being, and are just reaching out with what they think would be the most popular and palatable thing from their anti-rights wish list they could possibly get. It’s just comedically fortuitous that’s it’s also the most useless measure and by virtue of the billions in circulation also the least actionable though those two realities likely contribute to their perception that such a ban would be possible to enact.
They love laws that are impossible to enact, enforce and measure almost as much as they love laws that restrict the liberty of the people and enrich the elite.
“The real problem is people can’t or won’t fight back.”
Are you brave enough to take on an AR-15 in a bowling ally with your .357 revolver, or will you be diving for cover, hoping someone else takes him on?
importantly, i don’t “go bowling” (read: do anything) unarmed. that only raises the possibility of defense.
hard to believe they were all walking around defenseless. one retaliated with a kitchen knife and lost.
Geoff
I will be looking to shoot him in the back.
So yeah. Unarmed people charge the gun in these situations. You really think they lack nerve?
I don’t know how I would react in this situation. No one really does. The point is I’d rather have SOMETHING to fight back with, even if it’s a 5 shot revolver. Those people in Maine who attempted to fight back deserved to be armed.
Geoff, Yeah I’m willing to take that chance depending on the tactical situation. The alternative is diving for cover and waiting to die.
Echo5Bravo, I think we call that equivicating? If you have a firearm in your possession during such a situation, the idea is to attempt to gain tactical advatage.
In other words, tell him to drop the gun. If he twitches, you shoot at center of mass with the intent to stop the threat.
If you are unarmed, you have no choice but to hide and possibly die.
Once somebody starts threatening innocents, their only notice needs to be a bullet hitting their flesh. No need to attract attention to yourself or give the bad gun a fair chance of shooting you. Action beats reaction, so waiting for him to twitch risks him beating you to the shot. Also, somebody firing a rifle indoors may not be capable of hearing a warning.
geoff. Don’t do dacian’s job for him. It’s not a good look.
Geoff, we call that the cowards way out.
Yes, I will go up against an active shooter, regardless of what they are using. If I must die. I will do it fighting to protect the lives of my loved ones, as well as my own. Rather than die cowering in fear, hoping someone will save me. Period…
Until we as a society are willing to lock up dangerous people. We should just keep the body bags handy.
This guy was obviously a great danger. But no one is willing to lock him up.
We can’t even lock up rape and murder suspects. Until their court trial??!!??
And stop complaining about the jails being over crowded.
“…stop complaining about the jails being over crowded.”
Substantially-higher taxes will be needed to build a lot more jails.
How do you think that vote will go, Christopher? 🙁
Unless we start booting out non-violent offenders stuck there on mandatory sentences from the “war on drugs”. Pres. Trump got a start on federal prison reform, but in the pandemic crime wave appreciation of it seems to have waned.
you mean they’re not going to buildbackbetter jails?
plenty of room at the various cook county divisions. dart emptied ’em.
how obvious making room by releasing certain non- violent offenders is. let’s shift war on drugs to thugs.
“Substantially-higher taxes will be needed to build a lot more jails.”
I remember very well in the 1980s. When California had a big construction boom for building prisons and jails. People were very comfortable knowing that criminals would be locked up.
When you complain about prison overcrowding just build more prisons.
The more atheistic the country becomes, the more we have less and less self-control. We didn’t need all these extra jails and prisons, when people had religion and self control.
That is something the atheists will never understand.
Without religion, atheistic criminals rationalize their violent behavior all the time.
to Serpent_Vision
“war on drugs”
The “war on drugs” will be replaced by the war on drug dealers who are not paying their fair share in taxes.
Since the drug leg@liz@tion crowd have compared themselves to the tobacco business. Which pays a great deal in taxes.
And as they have said in the past, “we want to pay those taxes, in order to help the government raise more money.”
So I fully expect “the revenues” to start going after these legal drug dealers.
Quick and Immediate use of the Death Penalty for acts of violence resulting in the injury or death of innocent citizens. Will lessen the pressure on the prison system.
But we can lock up non-violent Jan 6 trespassers before their trial because justice.
It’s almost like the justice system is being used by the commies as a weapon.
The communists have always used the government powers against their political enemies.
And it’s why they have such hatred for the Bill of Rights.
one electoral outcome has them all pardoned.
By the same guy who failed to pardon them when he could?
to Serpent_Vision
President Trump pardon people who went through the court process completely. The couple in St. Louis, who defended their property, against a BLM mob also went through the court process. The governor pardoned them. Just like Trump pardoned the others.
Would you prefer an executive short circuit the court process??? And pardon somebody when they’re simply accused of something.
Now you have people from january 6th. Who have been in jail for years now without trial???
I hope Trump if he’s elected does pardon those people. The prosecutors had their chance.
Chris T – If people believe the 06JAN21 rioters/protesters are being wrongly prosecuted, why wouldn’t they want them pardoned to spare them that??? A pardon years later still sticks them in prison for those years.
how is an ex- president (no longer in office) going to pardon individuals detained or prosecuted after his term?
to Serpent_Vision
Based on the security video I would say there is no evidence they did anything wrong. They are political prisoners. And should be given a full pardon.
Unless there is physical evidence of them hitting an officer. Which there is not.
The libertarians liberals and the left used to speak up for political prisoners in this country. They used to say don’t trust the police.
Now their support seems to be based on the politics of the prisoners.
Chris T – Exactly the pardon that Trump could have given them on his way out, but chose not to. Ford pardoned Nixon before he was charged, Clinton pardoned donor Mark Rich while he was still a fugitive. Trump could have done it, but didn’t when he had the chance.
“Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins said she thinks a ban on high-capacity magazines is the best approach to stop this kind of gun violence. She also said at a news conference that from what she has heard, the yellow flag law should have been enforced.”
What a stupid thing to say. For example, preventing a normal law abiding person from not having a, very falsely and deceptively termed, ‘high capacity magazine’ is sure to be the solution to stop a mentally ill killer in Maine’s custody with him telling them he has the impulse to kill and will and has threatened to do so and is exhibiting the same ‘trouble of the mind’ mental illness all mass shooters exhibit, that would have been a sure bet to stop him right?
You idiots don’t get it. Its not the gun or magazine… its that these mentally ill people are driven to harm/kill and they are going to do it with or without a gun, all in one place in a single rampage or simply distributed over time in different places and end up with the same or even a greater victim count. Heck, this guy could have walked into any hardware store and gotten a knife or ax or machete and used it to kill four or more in that bowling alley or in that bar he had also targeted but didn’t act on it. This guy could have walked into just about any chain hardware store and gotten what he needed to make explosives from that in the garden sections and could have used an explosive device. This guy could have used his car to run down people on the streets. There are any number of things he could have used, and would have even if he did not have a gun because his mental illness was driving him to harm/kill.
Its not the ‘thing’ used, its the mental illness and Maine had him in ‘custody’, he told them he had this impulse and Maine released him and he did it and even if not then, and even if not with a gun, he would have eventually done it anyway.
“she thinks a ban on high-capacity magazines is the best approach to stop this kind of gun violence.”
Seriously, this is just an ignorant thing to say. There was and is no law or ban on anything that would have stopped this guy from killing if he was allowed to roam freely among the prey. Like I said above, if not a gun available to him he would have simply used something else either all in one place like the bowling alley or simply over time in different places in single victims, and still ended up with the same victim count. But, if Maine would have, you know, used their own existing laws and not let the left-wing liberal dominated mental health system basically say ‘I feelz we should let him go’ maybe he would not have been in that bowling alley.
Some form of arson seems a likely alternative, as updated reports say he served as a petroleum supply specialist.
[Quiet]CORRECTION: This article on the Gaza hospital blast initially did not clearly attribute claims about Israel’s responsibility to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health in Gaza. Israel later said a “misfired” rocket by militant group Islamic Jihad caused the blast and produced evidence to support its claim. US President Joe Biden said the Israeli position is backed by US intelligence. CNN’s forensic analysis of images and videos suggests a rocket fired from within Gaza caused the blast, not an Israeli airstrike.
Remember all those times CNN accidentally published propaganda in favor of US President Trump? Why did CNN “accidentally” push Hamas propaganda? There’s a reason for all things.
I wonder how Collins would respond to limits on hair dye. Or a background check and three day wait on iPhones…
“Or a background check and three day wait on iPhones…”
Yeah…. banning that ‘high capacity’ 5G on iPhones is sure to solve the problem of hate speech on the internet, right?
You don’t solve a mentally-ill-driven-to-kill killer problem by enacting a ban that only affects normal law abiding people. Like hate speech those hate-speech people are still going to get their hate speech out there some way or another, a mentally-ill-driven-to-kill killer is going to harm/kill some way or another even if they do not have that thing ‘banned’.
Mag limits only impair ordinary citizens from being able to effectively defend themselves against outlaws.
Any outlaw will just ignore the magazine capacity limit (there’s hundreds of millions of magazines with capacities of greater than 10 rounds in circulation) or, if determined, will practice rapidly changing out lower capacity magazines. Then there’s also the good ‘ol New York Reload.
Obviously, with the Maine shooting, there was no armed citizens capable of shooting back. The shooter could simply keep changing low capacity magazines and still would have killed as many people.
There is no effective substitute to an armed citizenry.
Bartender tried to stop him with a butcher knife, but no luck. He is a fatality.
But it was more a matter of law than luck. Butcher knife versus gun. The Law required it.
show me a tavern in my neighborhood that has no .38 or 12. i’ll wait.
What the ten round nazis fail to see or accept is that the parkland shooter used ten round magazines.
So did the V-Tech shooter. 10 round mags and pistols. No rifles or “high-caps.”
ODD COINCIDENCE: DOJ Warns (by filing brief) SCOTUS of Dangerous “Mentally Ill” Gun Owners Hours Before Maine Shooting.
Hours before the left wing shooter mass shooting in Maine, the DOJ submitted a legal brief in US v. Rahimi talking about the importance of 18 USC 922g(4), which (supposedly according to them) deals with mentally ill Americans being civilly committed to institutions. Mark Smith discusses the interplay between the DOJ argument and the the Maine Shooting in this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTdxhpOuylo
The Next David Hogg. Combatting The New Anti-gun Propaganda. (Starting at 7:39 in the video, we find out why the ‘david hogg’ wanna be is lying and why his word tricks follow exactly that pattern of the anti-gun organizations).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mfQasqQ33w
Gays against gun .com
Or in others words gays against your civil rights.
one free wide eyed fainting goat for every gun handed in.
I’m going to take a quantum leap here. I don’t beleive that the military hosptial that released this individual notifed the proper authorities of the man’s confinement.
I have to wonder why he was “released” after making such a threat to a miltitary facility? Sounds like the military doctors dropped the ball again.
You are assuming that he was admitted to a mental health facility involuntarily, which to date has not been established. If he voluntarily admitted himself for treatment, there is no firearms ban.
Mark N, Apparently you have not read the article? It seems he was ORDERED there by the Army.
Could still have been banned under the state’s “yellow flag” law. Different from 1968 GCA, as discussed in other comment.
mini me…sorta.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=4JykGOd9nlQ&feature=shared
the bigot in me saw turk and 17min… dnw.
The “yellow flag” law, which is described in the article by opponents (and by CNN) as “too cumbersome” is in reality no different than laws in most of the rest of the country that have been in effect for decades and are regularly employed. The basic provisions of such laws (in California it is Welfare & Institutions Code 5150) allow the police (who are generally summoned by a family member, but not necessarily) to detain a person if there is a reasonable belief that that person is a threat to himself or others, and to then transport that person to a mental health facility for “evaluation and treatment.” The facility then can involuntarily detain that person “for evaluation and treatment” for a specified number of days (varies by state, California is three days, others are significantly longer). This DOES NOT constitute an involuntary commitment to a mental health facility. An commitment/admission occurs if and only if the treating mental health professional determines that the person is a threat to himself or others, and petitions the court for an order permitting involuntary commitment. (Such hearings are usually held at the facility.) If granted, the person is then involuntarily detained for treatment, and a lifetime firearms ban results. HOWEVER, if the individual VOLUNTARILY AGREES to an admission, here is no hearing, no order, and no firearms ban.
Appears 2 different standards at work. 1968 GCA prohibits anyone ever involuntarily committed (apparently taking the pessimistic view that treatment can never cure such a person enough to let them regain their rights). Maine’s “yellow flag” law is like a “red flag” law, but requires a medical professional to sign off on it. All that would it would have required to prohibit him for a year (or whatever period ME law states) is for a doctor to sign off on it. Completely missed opportunity in this case, whether the committment was voluntary or involuntary.
Mark N. Just because “opponents and CNN” say it is “too cumbersome”, does not make it so. First this Reservist was ORDERED to the mental ward at the Army’s Hospital. That is the same as a judicial commitment in my eyes. The Army upon his release for whatever reason should have notified the appropriate authorities.
Question: I know a lot about the shooter, but little about the gun(s) he used. I did see a claim that he stole a gun from the Reserve Armory. Is it possible that this was a select-fire gun?
So here is a different question to consider. Where are all the armed good guys and gals ? At one time didn’t TTAG have articles titled Should’ve been a DGU? Why do so many leave their guns at home?
Mark, that is the inponderable question. Under the laws of Maine a citizen who is not a convicted felon or a domestic abuser can carry a firearm without a permit. Here is some reading material for you on the subject of concealed carry in Maine. https://abcnews.go.com/US/maines-gun-laws-after-lewiston-mass-shooting/story?id=104348166
As to where they were? Only God knows why no one was armed or even if there was someone who was armed but failed to act.
Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins said she thinks a ban on high-capacity magazines is the best approach to stop this kind of gun violence. Because there are not many in the public arena and they would be easy to gather up.
Roger D, and just how would you “gather” them up? Go house to house searching illegally?
There are already laws on the books about the dangerous mentally ill. Unfortunately “we” are not willing to enforce them
Just as there are laws already on the books about breaking the law. And “we” are not willing to enforce them either.
The country doesn’t need any more laws being passed.
Government employees called, prosecuting attorneys, do not want to enforce the laws. That are on the books in front of them.
Maybe senator Collins can ask the George Soros. prosecutors why they don’t enforce the laws???
Laws don’t work. There is a law in every state that makes it a crime to murder someone. That didn’t stop the shooter in Maine or anywhere else. Gun control laws won’t prevent people bent on mayhem from harming others. Never has, never will. The old cliché — ‘The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun’ has proven true since firearms were invented. Look at what happened in Israel on October 7th — over a thousand unarmed people massacred without a chance of fighting back because their government disarmed them through ‘gun control’ laws. Apparently the Maine shooter and HAMAS terrorists didn’t read the law….
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