Maine voters on Tuesday approved a law creating a new path to temporarily take guns from dangerous people following a referendum campaign inspired by the deadliest mass shooting in state history.
The Associated Press called the race for Question 2 shortly before 10 p.m. with ‘yes’ votes leading 58% to 41% with roughly half the votes counted. Passage of Question 2 marks a rare victory for gun control groups in a state where gun rights activists have long held supremacy over firearms policy by beating back previous referendums and holding sway in the Maine Legislature.
The 2023 Lewiston mass shooting brought new scrutiny to the state’s permissive gun laws and Tuesday’s referendum election was the first time voters have considered a firearms-related proposal since the tragedy.
While Question 2 won convincingly in liberal strongholds in Greater Portland and along the coast, early returns on Tuesday showed it also garnered support in rural precincts in nearly every Maine county. And in Lewiston, voters approved the measure by a 36-percentage-point margin.
“Maine voters have taken the safety of our communities into our own hands by passing commonsense, responsible gun legislation that will save lives and help keep our kids and families safe, not just from the horrors of a tragedy like Lewiston, but from the devastating impacts of everyday gun violence,” Nacole Palmer, of the Maine Gun Safety Coalition, said in a statement. “Despite years of opposition from the gun lobby and the politicians they back, we’ve shown that our movement for commonsense, responsible gun ownership is stronger.”
The citizens initiative creates a red flag law similar to those in more than 20 other states. It will stand alongside an existing law — commonly referred to as Maine’s yellow flag law — crafted in 2019 by Gov. Janet Mills and the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine, or SAM, a prominent gun rights group with deep connections to the state’s hunting traditions.
Both Mills and SAM opposed Question 2, claiming it would undercut the current law. In a statement the coalition of gun rights groups opposing the measure said it was outspent by out-of-state groups.
“We are glad that Maine's yellow flag law remains intact, and we look forward to continuing to work to improve our state's safety,” the group said. “We’re going to be reviewing all options to keep Mainers safe as we move into the future of the state.”
The yellow flag law came under scrutiny in the aftermath of the 2023 mass shooting because it was not used to stop the gunman despite warnings about his increasingly threatening behavior. Gun control groups backing Question 2 argued that the proposed law might have prevented the tragedy because it allows family members to directly petition a judge to have a loved one’s firearms temporarily confiscated — an option not allowed in Maine’s current law.
Question 2 opponents noted that the yellow flag law, used sparingly before Lewiston, exploded in usage after the tragedy. They claimed the red flag proposal was an unnecessary attack against gun owners that could be abused by estranged family members.
The red flag law in Question 2 makes fraudulent petitions to remove firearms a felony.
The Lewiston shooting also played a central role in both sides of the debate. The Question 2 campaign was led by local gun control advocates with financial backing from national organizations. It featured survivors of gun violence prominently in its messaging and enlisted former Maine Department of Public Safety Commissioner Anne Jordan to advocate for the proposal in televised debates and forums.
Jordan was the director of the governor’s commission that investigated the shootings. The commission found that the yellow flag law should have been used, but steered clear of any policy proposals or critique of the law’s mechanics, which critics argued are too cumbersome. Jordan validated those claims, saying law enforcement and families should have additional tools to disarm someone who is a danger to themselves or others.
Question 2 opponents, led by local gun rights groups, also enlisted survivors of the tragedy to argue the law was unnecessary. Opponents also marshaled support from Fraternal Order of Police, the state’s largest police union, to argue that the law would put families in danger because it doesn’t require police to take a person into protective custody before removing their firearms. Other red flag laws don’t have that requirement, but it’s a feature in Maine’s yellow flag law.
While the campaign was relatively inexpensive compared to recent ballot initiatives, Question 2 supporters, led by the committee Safe Schools, Safe Communities, had a sizable financial advantage over opponents, spending roughly $800,000. The gun rights groups behind the opposition campaign spent $108,000 through Monday. Most of the opposition money flowed from gun clubs and the political arm of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine.
The National Rifle Association, which has helped defeat previous gun control referendums in Maine, did not contribute to the opposition campaign.
Conversely, the Question 2 campaign benefited from donations from prominent gun control groups. The Maine Gun Safety Coalition and national gun control groups have pushed for a red flag law since 2018 when other states began adopting such statutes following a spate of mass shootings. They believed they were on the cusp of passing one in the Maine Legislature in 2019, Mills’ first year in office. The governor had supported a red flag proposal the previous year when she was the state’s attorney general. However, as governor, Mills sought a compromise with SAM.
The resulting proposal sailed through the Legislature where lawmakers in both parties are typically deferential to Maine’s influential gun rights lobby and SAM in particular. The law has novel procedures that set it apart from states’ extreme risk protection order laws. In addition to only allowing police to initiate the process, it also requires police to take the person into protective custody and hold them for a mental health evaluation.
Supporters of Question 2 argued that the law was needlessly cumbersome and wrongly used a mental health exam to determine a propensity for gun violence. A week before the Lewiston shootings, several gun control advocates failed to convince Mills to support a red flag law similar to other states.
They were also stymied after the shooting. The Democratic-controlled Legislature failed to advance a red flag proposal and instead passed the governor’s slate of gun control reforms.
Gun control groups launched a referendum campaign for a red flag law the following year.
“After years of no or incremental progress at the federal level, the road to creating safer communities and a safer nation runs through states like Maine, where voters have the power to take direct action on this issue when politicians,” Palmer said. “I’m proud that Maine is a part of that movement, alongside other local, state-based gun violence prevention organizations across the country.”
