It’s become a somber American tradition. A mass shooting ends lives and devastates communities. New laws are proposed, with well-worn debates over guns and mental illness. Sometimes they pass; most times they do not.
This year, following the Lewiston shooting, which killed 18 and injured more than a dozen, it’s Maine’s turn to participate in that grisly pattern. The state’s 2024 legislative session is likely to include multiple efforts to approve new laws aimed at preventing similar tragedies.
But history shows that legislative responses to mass shootings yield mixed results, with some states passing sweeping reforms and others taking little action at all. Already, fierce opposition has materialized in Maine to any proposals that would limit gun access, raising questions about what is politically feasible in the state with New England’s least restrictive firearms laws and a widespread culture of gun ownership.
In the weeks since the mass shooting, Maine legislators have proposed restricting firearms and boosting mental health services, among other measures, according to media reports and Globe interviews. Governor Janet Mills has charged a commission with investigating the tragedy, work that some hope will produce legislative change, too.
Now, in a familiar story, some in Maine are arguing for greater restrictions on guns while others pledge to fight those proposals, saying firearms are not to blame for the tragedy.
A month before the shooting, the US Army Reserve warned a Maine sheriff that Robert R. Card II, the gunman, had descended into severe mental illness and that one of his fellow Army reservists was worried Card was “going to snap and commit a mass shooting.” Legal experts, including an architect of the state’s yellow flag law, said local police had enough evidence to begin the process of seizing Card’s firearms before the shootings took place. That indicates a failure of adherence to the law, not a need for new policy, some argue.