The BDN Editorial Board operates independently from the newsroom, and does not set policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the newspaper or on bangordailynews.com.
Republicans, including President Donald Trump, want you to fear that schools are secretly sending children away for gender-reassignment surgery. This is ludicrous. Yet, campaigns across the country are spending millions of dollars to spread this fallacious fear and other trangender hate.
What is happening is that children continue to be gunned down in American schools. Last week, three students and a teacher were killed in Bend, Oregon. The suspected shooter, a 16-year-old former student of the elementary school, who received the gun as a birthday gift from his mother, was killed by a father of children at the school. It was the 52nd school shooting in the U.S. this year.
Gun violence has received little attention this year as control of Congress — and hence the power of Trump — is up for grabs. That is too bad, because gun violence continues to claim far too many lives in America and, as we’ve seen in Maine, there are actions to take that can reduce this violence, while respecting constitutional rights.
Sunday marks the third anniversary of the horrific shooting in Lewiston that claimed 18 lives, injured 13 and reshaped countless lives. In the wake of that tragedy, state leaders, led by Gov. Janet Mills, reconsidered their positions and came together to tackle gun violence, and to improve mental health services. The state’s existing yellow flag law, which was rarely used before the Lewiston tragedy, was strengthened and it has been used much more frequently. Voters later approved a red flag law, allowing family members to petition to remove guns from those they considered a danger to themselves or to others.
Those measures, known officially as extreme risk protection orders, are working. The Maine Attorney General’s Office reports that Maine’s yellow flag law has been used more than 1,600 times since it went into effect in July 2020. Use of the law to disarm people threatening harm to themselves or others has increased markedly since the Lewiston shooting in 2023. Deaths by suicide have been prevented, as recently as this week. Homicides have been stopped.
The newer red flag law, which went into effect this year, has been used five times, The Maine Monitor reported. Three requests under the new law were denied as of late August.
In 2024, Gov. Mills allowed a 72-hour waiting period for gun purchases to become law. The law was quickly challenged in court by gun rights groups. Earlier this week, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to consider the case, leaving in place a lower court ruling upholding the constitutionality of the waiting period. Further court proceedings remain. Research has shown that waiting periods can reduce suicides, homicides and intimate partner violence using guns.
As we remember the victims and survivors of the Lewiston shooting, and their families and friends, we can be proud that Maine acted quickly to avert another such horrible tragedy. The law changes enacted by the Legislature and by the people of Maine have saved lives, while upholding constitutional rights. But, we also know that there is more work to do to keep all Mainers, especially our children, safe from gun violence.
To reach a suicide prevention hotline, call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org.
