Extreme Risk Protection Orders Will Save Lives

Today lawmakers in Augusta held a public hearing on the Extreme Risk Protection Orders citizen initiative (LD 1378) that will appear on the November 2025 ballot and the message from testimony was resoundingly clear: Extreme Risk Protection Orders will save lives and help keep Maine’s schools and communities safe from tragedies.

Legislators on the Judiciary Committee heard from a diverse group of testifiers in support of Extreme Risk Protection Orders, including from gun violence prevention and domestic violence prevention advocates, teachers, and medical professionals — a group representing the 80,000 Mainers who signed petitions to put ERPOs on the ballot.

“Maine’s current law has significant problems that concern mental health professionals,” said Dr. David Moltz, representing the Maine Association of Psychiatric Physicians. “Most people who use guns aggressively are in crisis, but they are not necessarily mentally ill. They may have lost a job or a relationship, or may be drinking too much. Right now, mental health professionals are forced to evaluate them, but we do not have special skills or training in accurately assessing potential dangerousness. This proposal puts that decision where it belongs.”

ERPOs empower family members to directly petition a court when a loved one is in crisis and may pose a threat to themselves or others. Through due process, a judge can temporarily limit someone’s access to deadly weapons, and the ERPO proposal maintains the exact same due process protections that exist under Maine’s current law. Under an ERPO law, both family members and law enforcement have more tools to intervene quickly before a crisis becomes a tragedy. 

In the case of the Lewiston tragedy, multiple people close to the would-be shooter warned he may pose a threat but none of those warnings resulted in action, which the Lewiston Commission report attributed to Maine’s burdensome, slow, and inefficient ‘yellow flag’ law. 

“As a teacher, I have a responsibility not only to ensure our students are safe but also to create an environment that’s conducive to learning — that means one where our students don’t fear the existential threat of gun violence at school,” said Margaret Martin, a high school teacher in Lewiston. “I know it might feel like the kind of horrific school shootings that we see on the news in places like Parkland and Uvalde and Sandy Hook are impossible here, but we said the same thing about mass shootings before Lewiston. We can’t wait for another tragedy to take action.”

Firearms are now the leading cause of death for American children and teens. ERPO laws exist in 21 other states and Washington, D.C., where they’ve been used effectively to disarm people who have threatened mass shootings, including school shootings. Additionally, ERPOs have been proven effective in reducing incidents of suicide — the leading cause of firearm death in Maine, especially among men.

“Today it was clear that the gun lobby, including the National Rifle Association, wanted to use this hearing to spread misinformation and scare tactics about this common-sense law that exists in 21 other states,” said Nacole Palmer, executive director of the Maine Gun Safety Coalition, the organization behind the Safe Schools, Safe Communities campaign. “We know, however, that Mainers are smarter than that, and that here in Maine we can respect our rights to own firearms while also doing more to keep our kids and communities safe. Extreme Risk Protection Orders are a data-proven tool that save lives while protecting due process by empowering family members to get help when a loved one is in crisis.”