The Maine gunman was a ‘textbook case’

The signs were there: hearing voices, expressing paranoid thoughts and making threats so violent, extra patrols were sent to guard a military installation.

Documents and information shared by authorities and law enforcement sources show for months, those who knew the US Army reservist who would eventually go on a shooting rampage in northern Maine on October 25 reported his deteriorating mental state and serious concerns he would become violent.

The state is the only in the country with a so-called “yellow flag” law, which is a more relaxed version of the popular red flag laws used by nearly half of US states aiming to prevent dangerous individuals from accessing firearms, gun policy experts told CNN.

Experts say the law in Maine was specifically designed for people like Robert Card, the 40-year-old firearms expert who went on two shooting rampages at a bar and bowling alley in Lewiston. In the end, the gunman killed 18 people and wounded 13 others with an assault rifle at Just-in-Time Recreation and at Schemengees Bar & Grille.

But there’s no way of knowing whether the law would have worked, as authorities never attempted to utilize what gun policy experts say is the best tool at their disposal that may have disarmed him – a glaring issue experts say points to the weakness of the law when compared to legislation in other states. Instead, law enforcement relied on the gunman’s family to keep guns from him after they tried without success to talk to the reservist.

“This is a textbook case for the yellow flag law,” said Michael Rocque, chairperson of the sociology department and a criminologist who has studied gun laws and mass shootings at Bates College, which is based in Lewiston. “This is what it was intended for. Somebody who is having a mental health crisis, who has demonstrated themselves to be a threat.”

Authorities have said Maine gun laws do not prohibit a person from buying a gun based strictly on a mental health diagnosis or treatment. The state, with its robust hunting culture, doesn’t require background checks before making all gun purchases, nor does it require firearm owners to register their weapons. It also doesn’t require permits to carry concealed firearms in public.

But officers can utilize its yellow flag law to take a person in crisis into protective custody and undergo a medical evaluation. Then, a judge can decide whether to approve an order to temporarily remove the person’s access to firearms, the law states.

The law, passed in 2019, was a compromise between gun-rights and gun-control advocates to the red-flag laws in place in 21 US states and Washington, D.C., also known as an extreme risk protection order, Rocque said.

Red flag laws vary by state, but they largely allow anyone who knows a person who poses a threat to themselves or others to petition a court to temporarily remove their access to firearms.