The Maine Gun Safety Coalition announced that it had collected enough signatures to place a red flag law citizen initiative on the November 2025 ballot. (Photo by Eesha Pendharkar/ Maine Morning Star)
This story will be updated.
The Maine Gun Safety Coalition announced Thursday it collected enough petition signatures to put a gun safety citizen initiative on the ballot this November.
If passed, the initiative will make it easier to temporarily take guns away from people perceived as a threat by law enforcement or their family members. Many gun safety advocates and Mainers have emphasized the need for a red flag law — also known as an officially called an Extreme Risk Protection Order — in light of the Lewiston mass shooting in October 2023.
“There is no single policy that will end with all gun violence, but extreme risk protection orders provide a life saving tool,” said Nacole Palmer, Executive Director of the Maine Gun Safety Coalition.
“This November, Mainers will have the chance to have their own say and vote on this initiative to keep our schools and our communities safe.”
On Election Day last year, the coalition and allies began collecting signatures to put a red flag law on Maine’s ballot. In one day, about 500 volunteers spread throughout 100 polling locations for the Safe Schools, Safe Communities campaign collected more than 60,000 signatures.
By the Jan. 23 deadline, the group had collected more than 80,000 signatures, well above the 67,682 needed to get on the ballot (based on the state’s requirement of having 10% of the total votes cast in the most recent gubernatorial election). After a press conference on Thursday, volunteers and activists with the campaign turned the signatures in to the Secretary of State’s Office to be validated.
A red flag law allows family members to directly petition a judge to temporarily limit someone’s access to firearms when they are in crisis. Washington, D.C. and 21 states have red flag laws, but Maine is the only state with a “yellow flag” version, which only permits law enforcement to confiscate firearms, and requires a mental health evaluation before a judge can do the same.
The campaign formed with a goal to pursue a citizen-driven ballot initiative after the Maine Legislature failed to pass one last session. In March, the state commission investigating the Lewiston mass shooting issued an interim report concluding that local law enforcement had sufficient cause to utilize the state’s current “yellow flag” law and failed to do so.
Maine’s mental health community has also criticized the yellow flag law for explicitly tying gun violence to mental health, which they say stigmatizes people with a diagnosis while also ignoring the danger posed by those without a diagnosed mental illness.
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