The head of the Maine Department of Public Safety declined to address concerns over the state’s “yellow flag” gun control laws after Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said they should have been triggered before the mass shooting in the state this week.
“I’m heavily involved in the yellow flag conversation overall, but the reality for today is I’m not going to talk specifically about who knew what and when. We’re still actively involved in a very dynamic situation here,” Commissioner Michael Sauschuck said at a press conference Friday.
“We’re focused on an individual that currently has eight warrants out for murder. We’re trying to figure that part out, trying to bring him into justice as well as investigate this crime,” he continued, referring to the suspect in the shooting, who remains at large. “There will be a time.”
Collins said Thursday that the state’s laws should have separated suspected shooter Robert Card from his firearms because of his known struggles with mental health problems.
Police believe Card is the gunman who killed 18 people and injured 13 more in a mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, Wednesday evening, the deadliest shooting in the U.S. this year. He has not been apprehended as of Friday morning and a massive search is ongoing.
Collins cited Card’s previous hospitalization in a mental health facility as a reason he should have triggered the state gun control law.
“The fact that the suspect was hospitalized for two weeks for mental illness should have triggered the yellow flag law. He should have been separated from his weapons,” Collins said at a press conference Thursday. “I’m sure that after the fact, that it’s going to be looked at very closely.”
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Maine’s gun control laws have come under scrutiny following the shooting. The state’s “yellow flag” law differs from the more common, and more strict, “red flag” laws in other states.
While red flag laws require law enforcement agencies to seize a person’s firearms if they are deemed a threat to themselves or others, Maine’s yellow flag law adds additional hurdles to the process, including a requirement that a mental health professional evaluate a person and judge them to be a threat before police can request a judicial hearing.
Gun control advocates in Maine have attempted for years to pass stronger laws in the state, including a true red flag law, to no avail.
Elected officials must “stop bowing to the gun lobby and look squarely at the face of what has happened in Maine’s second largest city,” Maine Gun Safety Coalition Chair Cam Shannon told The Associated Press.
The shooting has also re-upped efforts to pass an assault weapons ban in Congress. Card is believed to have used an assault-style weapon to commit the shooting, officials said.
Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine), a Lewiston native, reversed his long-held stance against such a ban Thursday after the shooting.
“Out of fear of this dangerous world that we live in, in my determination to protect my own daughter and wife in our home and in our community, because of a false confidence that our community was above this and that we could be in full control, among many other misjudgments, I have opposed efforts to ban deadly weapons of war, like the assault rifle used to carry out this crime,” Golden said at a press conference Thursday.
“The time has now come for me to take responsibility for this failure, which is why I now call on the United States Congress to ban assault rifles, like the one used by the sick perpetrator of this mass killing in my hometown of Lewiston, Maine,” he continued. “For the good of my community, I will work with any colleague to get this done in the time that I have left in Congress.”
“To the people of Lewiston, my constituents throughout the 2nd District, to those who lost loved ones and to those who have been harmed, I ask for forgiveness and support as I seek to put an end to these terrible shootings,” he said.